New York, Nov 25: The United Nations Refugee Agency has sharply criticised the European Union's planned new procedures for asylum seekers, warning they could result in a substantial deterioration in standards to the point of being at variance with the established international law. "The asylum procedures directive should aim at high standards of refugee protection and should strive for a truly meaningful level of harmonisation," UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Ruud Lubbers said in a letter to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, current holder of the EU presidency.

"I regret to say that ... There has been further substantial deterioration of the draft directive on both these counts," Lubbers said. If this process continues, "I fear that this directive will be reduced to a catalogue of optional provisions, including significant departures from accepted international refugee and human rights law and principles established over more than 50 years," he said.

In the letter, sent ahead of November 27 meeting of EU Interior Ministers in Brussels, lubbers asserted if the text of the directive were not significantly improved it might be better to take it off the table altogether, until "a more propitious moment." Bureau Report