THE German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, infuriated EU colleagues early yesterday morning by announcing a dramatic policy U-turn on the right to political asylum within the EU.
Dr Kohl told a German television station that Bonn would not agree to majority voting on EU measures governing asylum and that each proposal to extend majority voting in the fields of justice and home affairs must be judged on its individual merits.
"Unless we have the decisive say and the brake on what happens to asylum law in our country, there will be no agreement," he said.
By lunchtime, the EU heads of government had agreed to the German demands, allowing each member-state to veto any EU decision relating to asylum-seekers.
The move marked an extraordinary turnaround for Germany, which has been in the vanguard of the drive towards extending majority voting and integrating EU policies on justice and home affairs.
But sources close to Dr Kohl said that, under pressure from Germany's 16 federal states, which share responsibility for asylum-seekers, he had to insist on retaining the veto. The treaty must be approved by both German houses of parliament, one of which is dominated by representatives of the federal states.
According to statistics issued in Amsterdam yesterday, Germany has accepted more than half the EU's asylum-seekers since 1985. Bonn took 11 6,000 refugees last year, while 17,000 came to France, 27,000 to Britain and fewer than 1,200 to Ireland.
Germany is particularly concerned about proposals to grant successful asylum-seekers the right of residence throughout the EU and about the question of who should finance refugees while their applications are being processed.
The issue is a highly emotive one in Germany, which has seen a recent wave of church burnings by extreme right-wingers opposed to the protection offered to illegal immigrants by some priests. A tiny fraction of German asylum applications is successful, but a complicated appeals process means that unsuccessful applicants often remain in the country for a number of years before they are deported.
During this time, the federal states have an obligation to house, clothe and feed the refugees, placing a huge burden on over-stretched resources. The conservative Minister-President of Bavaria, Mr Edmund Stoiber recently warned that the German people would not accept a revised Maastricht Treaty which allowed refugees to move from one EU country to another.
In a parallel dispute, Spain lost its battle to ban EU states from granting political asylum to citizen of other member-states. The move, which was prompted by Spain's fight against Basque terrorism, was opposed by Ireland and Belgium on the grounds that Madrid's human rights record was open to question.
The summit agreed an anodyne resolution on the issue, noting the obligation of each member-state to respect the 1951 Geneva Convention on Human Rights and leaving asylum policy to the discretion of national governments. Applicants for political asylum from within the EU will, as before, be judged on their merits. Spanish observers in Amsterdam suggested that the outcome was a humiliation for Madrid, which made the issue th9 focus of its efforts at the summit.
Spain's failure could have unforeseen consequences in view of a threat uttered by the Spanish Prime Minister, Mr Jose Maria Aznar, at Monday evening's dinner of heads of government.
"If I can't get this through, I'll have to seek political asylum in Belgium," he said. Few were giving much for his chances of a successful application.
