© 1997 by Oxford University Press
Temporary Protection: An Assessment of the Harmonisation Policies of European Union Member States
* University of Konstanz Germany. The present article is a revised version of a paper presented at the Conference on Refugee Rights and Realities at the University of Nottingham, 30 November 1996, as a part of the Workshop on European Harmnonization.
Considerable progress in harmonisation has already been made in the policies of European Union Member States on the question of refugees covered by the 1951 Convention. At the same time, there have also been calls for common action in regard to the protection of persons not recognised as Convention refugees, but who are nevertheless in need of international protection. In September 1995, the European Council adopted a resolution on burden-sharing with regard to the admission and residence of displaced persons on a temporary basis. When adopting the resolution Member States intended to provide an effective arrangement for the future sharing of the burden of humanitarian assistance in situations of conflict leading to large population displacements. To develop this resolution, the Council supplemented it in March 1996 with a decision on an alert and emergency procedure for burden-sharing. A year later, the European Commission submitted to the Council its own proposal for a ‘joint action’ based on article K.3(2)(b) of the Treaty on European Union concerning temporary protection of displaced persons. This article aims to evaluate the two instruments and the Commission proposal with respect to their contribution to the process of harmonisation of EU Member States' national policies concerning displaced persons who are not recognised as refugees under the 1951 Convention.