External borders, visas, asylum and immigration: action programme 2002-2006 for administrative cooperation ARGO

The committee adopted the report by Arie OOSTLANDER (EPP-ED, NL) broadly approving the proposal under the consultation procedure, subject to a number of amendments. These were aimed mainly at strengthening the Community dimension by underpinning the Commission's right to propose legislation and ensuring that the programme would be subject to scrutiny by national parliaments and the European Parliament. Other amendments underlined the need to ensure respect for human rights when dealing with issues concerning border control, asylum, visas and immigration, as well as the need to ensure that asylum seekers and others in need of protection have access to procedures for international protection. The report also called for visa application procedures to be simplified, for a common approach to be developed to the analysis of regions in crisis, so as to prevent Member States from taking contradictory decisions on asylum applications, and for measures to promote knowledge about the situation in asylum-seekers' countries of origin. Lastly, the committee wanted the Commission to make a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the programme available at the same time as it submits the preliminary draft budget and to ensure that the results of the programme and any documents, studies, etc. produced during its implementation are published on the Internet. �