“Asylum in Spain: international protection and the resources of the reception system”, presented by Soledad Becerril to the Joint Committee for Relations with the Ombudsman, analyses the situation of the Spanish asylum system and gives altogether 26 recommendations for improving the reception and integration of people seeking refuge in Spain.
The recommendations, which were addressed to the Interior Ministry, the Directorate General for Domestic Policy, the Secretariate General for Immigration and Emigration and the Self-Governing Regions set out to “establish a system for monitoring the procedure and reception, for detecting problems in the daily functioning and propose measures for improvement”.
The Ombudsman highlighted the problems as regards asylum faced by not only Spain but Europe as a whole. The study indicates that the European Union had never had to “think up and design a policy for receiving hundreds of thousands of people, displaced by wars, by terror and by persecution (…) It wasn’t prepared for it”.
The number of people forcibly displaced “has exceeded the capacity of the usual entry procedures”, she pointed out.
The study indicates that reception calls for acting in accordance with a common asylum system, speeding up asylum application procedures and transfers to Spain, dealing with special diligence with situations that involve minors, people with disability and human trafficking.
It also points out that it is necessary to have the right legal assistance as well as highly qualified healthcare staff for all these functions.
To facilitate integration, the study emphasizes that it is necessary to keep watch over the financial support that the refugees receive, and the different phases in the process through which they may pass.
For that reason, the Office of the Ombudsman has deemed it fitting to review the conditions and circumstances provided for in the law regulating the right to asylum and subsidiary protection, of October 2009, for granting protection and endeavouring to achieve the integration of the refugees.
Some of the recommendations made:
To the Ministry of the Interior
To alter the Law on Asylum in order to speed up asylum processing for the relatives of seekers who are in risk situations.
To renew the IT system of the Asylum and Refuge Office to improve the management and publication of statistics on international protection.
To speed up the carrying out of transfers to Spain of international protection seekers.
Secretariate General for Immigration and Emigration
To give instructions in order to avoid the lack of protection of the seekers in the event of possible saturation situations, and to draw up action protocols for channeling financial support from government authorities and private individuals.
To establish an efficient system for supervising the undertakings of non-governmental organisations that are collaborating with the reception.
To the Self-Governing Regions
To give the health services instructions for asylum seekers to be able to see specialist doctors, even though it falls outside the validity period of the temporary residence card and the asylum procedure is still being processed.
The different bodies of the Central Government and most of the self-governing regions have responded to the recommendations made in this study. In general terms, the replies express the wish of government bodies to improve the resources, procedures and living conditions available to asylum seekers.
The Office of the Ombudsman continues the dialogue with the government authorities on aspects of its recommendations that need more precision or about which there some disagreement.
