SEARI BILL,
member of the European Consultation on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE)

On ECRE Experience with Non-Governmental Organizations in Central Europe Rendering Assistance to Refugees

The issues on the agenda of this seminar are all-important, in view of the frightful range of the sufferings and privations the refugees and forced migrants have to go through in search of a legal status. These issues are also important because your efforts to ensure observance of the rules of international law and the Constitution of the Russian Federation across the country should become a model for those groups that are encountering similar problems in other sections of law. And I believe, what you are doing today will have a bearing on both your country and other nations — within the European Union and without.

ECRE is a non-governmental organization. Its goal is to pool the efforts of the European non-governmental organizations, rendering assistance to refugees. For quite some time all ECRE work was carried out by its present Secretary General and his one assistant. Today we have a secretariat of eight workers, and that is not a small organization, as it is a coordinating center for non-governmental structures coping with the refugee problems whose scope of work is the whole of Europe. It numbers 60 member organizations and branch offices, located in twenty countries. The dues they pay go to cover our expenses.

ECRE activities fork off in several directions:

• we give representatives of member-organizations a chance to meet and share their various experiences; two meetings are arranged annually for representatives of all member-organizations to air issues that are of greatest concern to them, and so draw everyone’s attention to them. At these meetings they can also agree a concerted program of action for the near future;
• we arrange seminars on topical issues, like the recent one in London, which focused on the conditions of refugee children;
• we publish articles containing a thorough analysis of the legislation and policies, bearing on refugee problems;
• we are setting up a network code-named «Elena». It is a European network undertaking to ensure asylum. Designed to assist practicing lawyers, the network is a link for those counseling refugees anywhere in Europe. It is their chance to share their knowledge and to make the experience they acquired a common resource. The «Elena» also arranges courses for both fledgling lawyers, only just turning to the problems of refugees, and old-timers on specific problems. At those courses the practicing lawyers meet with the leading academic lawyers to discuss common problems and any particular topic, like the European Human Rights Convention and how it is to be applied to defend the interests of refugees. Although based in the building housing the ECRE office, this is not a centralized network, and the bulk of the work is done in various countries. We have a coordinating officer in each country, and he knows every lawyer on this program in the given country, as well as the scope of the problems they are tackling. The information he collects is then made accessible to all those involved in the network. The coordinating officers meet once a year to share their experiences and plan their future work.

Of late ECRE has been increasingly turning its attention to the European Union: its just opened office in Brussels is staffed with a clerk and an expert to focus on the European Union affairs. We have been prompted by the fact that many of our members represent European Union member-states, and many aspects of refugee rights protection are directly affected by the decisions passed by the EU. We are also well aware of the fact that since the West is closely watching the developments in Russia, the EU-passed decisions on migration, especially where the granting of asylum is concerned, have a big significance not only for Russia, but for many other countries as well.

ECRE is also engaged in work with non-governmental organizations of Central Europe, who, over the past four years, have been working on a program of assistance to refugees with financial, intellectual and practical backing from the UNHCR offices in Geneva and countries of Central Europe. ECRE’s expertise might prove useful to you.

Viewed in retrospective, ECRE activity may be divided into three phases: first we toured seven countries of Central Europe to see how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were operating there and arranged a refreshment course on various refugee-related aspects of international law and policy. The second phase involved work with NGO representatives, which included holding seminars on planning and identifying problems which we could help resolve. We focused on:

• holding seminars on issues topical for those countries. Some of them touched on legal aspects, but interest was the keenest in organizational aspects, namely, how NGOs should operate, where and how the money for their operation should be raised, how the information accrued could be used to influence government policy;
• offering NGOs an opportunity to take part in the seminars arranged by ECRE and «Elena»;
• arranging visits to ECRE branch offices in other countries to see their workings;
• enabling NGOs from Central Europe to establish bilateral contacts.

And now we are shifting into the third phase which partly overlaps the second and endeavors to set up a single grid in Central Europe. We can participate in it as we have enough experience to our credit. Several NGOs have joined ECRE, and «Elena» network is covering the whole of the region; there has also appeared another network, the «Cefran», which is a Central European network of NGOs affording protection to refugees. Recently it held its second session in Prague, on refugee integration.

About a year ago ECRE received a grant from the European Union, which made it possible for us to visit Russia, Ukraine and Belarus and canvass opinion of the NGOs there on cooperation with ECRE in refugee-related work.

I believe, in the coming years your achievements will in large measure shape ECRE activity.