Cyprus not doing enough to combat Green Line illegal immigration
By Jean Christou
CYPRUS is on its own in combating illegal immigration across the Green Line and cannot receive official assistance from Brussels, an EU representative made clear yesterday.
In an interview with the Cyprus News Agency, the Head of Unit Turkish Cypriot Taskforce at the DG Enlargement of the European Commission Andrew Rasbash said the Green Line was not considered an external border of the EU.
Therefore he said the operational and financial means of the EU, such as the FRONTEX Agency or the External Border Fund could not be deployed on the Green Line.
Cyprus has been plagued by illegal immigration from the north since the crossing points opened in April 2003 but because the EU acquis is suspended for the Turkish Cypriot breakaway state, they are not under the same pressure to clamp down on illegal immigrants.
Essentially even though the Green Line is not regarded as an external border of the EU, de facto it is. Most of the immigrants find their way south easily and see Cyprus as a gateway to Europe.
In his interview Rasbash repeated the conclusions of the last Green Line report, which said Cyprus was not doing enough to combat illegal immigration.
“Article 3 of the Green Line Regulation provides that effective surveillance shall be carried out by the Republic of Cyprus all along the line, in such a way as to discourage people from circumventing checks at the crossing points'', Rasbash said.
“In other words, the Republic of Cyprus has a legal obligation to effectively survey the Green Line.”
Cyprus has already asked the EU for help pleading that it cannot manage to control the situation alone.
The EU official said that the legal obligation of the Republic of Cyprus was to survey the Green Line between the crossing points so as to have the effect of discouraging illegal migration. The Green Line Regulation does not mandate how that should be done.
Asked whether any measures taken by the Republic of Cyprus could lead to the conclusion that the Green Line constituted an external border, he said: “The Green Line Regulation clearly confirms in its recital 7 that the Green Line does not constitute an external border of the EU”.
Despite this official definition, Rasbash said that the rules concerning the crossing of the Green Line by persons are similar to those applying at all external frontiers of the EU.
“The Republic of Cyprus is responsible for enforcing these rules, together with the authorities of the UK Sovereign Base Areas. The Commission is required to monitor and report to EU Member States on the implementation of the Regulation”, Rasbash said.
“There is a standard and well-used set of procedures available to allow the Commission to carry out this task.”
In its report last September, the EU warned that Cyprus should act immediately to stem illegal immigration across the buffer zone whether or not the Greek Cypriot side considered the demarcation line an external border or not.
The Commission said there was, “worryingly high numbers of illegal immigrants”.
According to the data submitted to the EU by the authorities, the number of illegal immigrants detained after crossing the Green Line increased from 725 in 2002 to 3,796 in 2003 and 5,287 in 2004 before decreasing again to a level of 5,191 in 2005 and 3,778 in 2006. Around 97 per cent came through the north.
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2008
