50th anniversary of Geneva Convention

Speaking on behalf of the European Commission on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the signing in Geneva on 28 July 1951 of the Convention on the Status of Refugees, Justice and Home Affairs António Vitorino said:

"The Geneva Convention is a legal and practical embodiment of an elevated notion of mankind and liberty. It affirms the principle of an obligation to protect those at risk of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinions or membership of a particular social group. It's signing, fifty years ago, may be hailed as a spectacular advance in civilization. Unfortunately, such an instrument remains more than ever relevant today: all over the world crises and conflicts continue to drive men, women and children from their homes and to displace vast numbers of people, provoking human suffering and misery.

With the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the European Union has set itself a new and ambitious objective: to establish an area of freedom, security and justice. Meeting in Tampere in October 1999, the Heads of State and Government of the Member States stated that Europe, true to its past, cannot regard the freedom and stability it has enjoyed for over half a century as an exclusive privilege. The European Council declared that it would be contrary to its traditions to deny this freedom to those whose circumstances lead them justifiably to seek access to our territory. The Treaty itself placed the Geneva Convention at the very heart of European integration, by making it the foundation on which a common asylum policy is being built. The right of asylum was also explicitly enshrined in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The future common European asylum system will therefore be based on a full and inclusive application of the Geneva Convention. Our partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees will be essential here. We will also have to respond to the need for new forms of protection, revealed by recent geopolitical developments, and to protect the right to asylum from actions, which have the effect of diverting it from its true humanitarian purpose. In this context, for example, the Council recently adopted a new temporary protection regime, specifically adapted to the sort of mass movements of displaced persons we witnessed in the wake of the crises in Bosnia and Kosovo. It is in this spirit, too, that the Commission will shortly be adopting a proposal for a common definition of the concept of refugee and the approximation of the forms of subsidiary protection, which, in the Member States, supplement the regime provided by the Convention. We must also campaign tirelessly against the criminal networks that are sadly becoming ever more prevalent and more active and prey on human misery to organize their vile traffic."

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• EU Presidency Statement - Status of Protocols Additional to Geneva Conventions  (13/10/2004)