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Letter: Asylum overhaul

Peter M. Hawkins
Wednesday 09 December 1998 00:02 GMT
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Sir: The Home Secretary has created a rod for his own back by not accepting the Schengen agreement, so that it is still possible for asylum seekers coming overland from Eastern Europe to pass the "international frontier" on the British coast, and be able to claim asylum ("Romanians' bid for freedom ends in jail", 8 December).

If, as was intended by the Treaty of Rome and the Single European Act 1986, this coastal frontier was simply an internal one, asylum-seekers would have to return to the last international frontier that they had passed, which would be the eastern external frontier of the European Union.

So come on Mr Straw, under the Treaty of Amsterdam, Article 4, you can take part in all the provisions of Schengen. We are supposed to be at the heart of Europe, and yet we have three passport checks on incoming Eurostars.

Your administration is anxious to bring the benefits of the Union to the ordinary person, and nothing is more beneficial than the free movement of persons. Eurostar might start to make a profit at last, and the truckers will not have to dump their stowaways on the steps of your office.

PETER M HAWKINS

Peterborough,

Cambridgeshire

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