Projet de loi portant assentiment à l'Accord entre les Etats du Benelux (le Royaume de Belgique, le Grand-Duché de Luxembourg, le Royaume des Pays-Bas) et la République d'Arménie relatif à la réadmission des personnes en séjour irrégulier, et au Protocole d'application, faits à Bruxelles le 3 juin 2009.
General information ¶
- Submitted by
-
The Senate
- Submission date
- Dec. 1, 2011
- Official page
- Visit
- Status
- Adopted
- Requirement
- Simple
- Subjects
- Armenia Benelux foreign national illegal migration international agreement removal
Voting ¶
- Voted to adopt
- CD&V Vooruit LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR VB
- Voted to reject
- Groen Ecolo
Contact form ¶
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Discussion ¶
March 1, 2012 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)
Full source
President André Flahaut ⚙
by Mr. Roel Deseyn, rapporteur, refers to his written report.
Daphné Dumery N-VA ⚙
Mr. Speaker, colleagues, we would like to talk a moment about the not insignificant agreement that is here. It is a re-admission agreement between the Benelux and Armenia. This is good and my group will approve it.
I would like to point out the design of this cooperation agreement on the readmission agreement. It concerns Armenian nationals who are illegally staying in this country and must return to their country without a travel document or passport and who do not voluntarily agree to it. Forced return should be facilitated in cooperation with the country of origin.
If we look at the Armenian citizens, it turns out that in 2011 no Armenian citizen who has sought asylum was recognized. However, Armenia is in the top ten of multiple asylum applications. This means that these people, when refusing an asylum application, repeatedly submit such an application and do not comply with a request to voluntarily leave the country. Cooperation with Armenia is crucial. Most of them do not have a national passport and can therefore not travel. A laissez-passer is required.
This is necessary not only for Armenia, but also for other countries with which such an agreement is urgently needed. We have already insisted on this in committees several times and we want to draw attention to it again through this agreement. There is an agreement with Algeria. We are constantly wondering how far this is, because this needs to be done urgently. Many citizens of Algeria claim to have no passports and the Algerian government refuses to conclude any re-admission agreement with our country or the Benelux. We need an example like Armenia. We therefore insist on any contact of our country through diplomatic posts with such countries on readmission policy in order to conclude a re-admission agreement like the present.
When negotiating such an agreement, one can also talk about the costs of the removal. We note in the present agreement that there was no discussion on this subject and regret this: Belgium bears unilaterally all the costs of the forced removal. When one concludes a cooperation agreement with a country, one could also talk about shared liability for the costs. We therefore hope that in the future the comments we have made on this subject will be taken into account and that this will be taken into account in future readmission agreements, which will be voted here in the plenary session.