Gerber warns of perils facing Swiss asylum policy

Jean-Daniel Gerber has been the head of the Refugee Office for the past six years Keystone Archive

The director of the Federal Refugee Office, Jean-Daniel Gerber, announced he would be leaving his post at the end of March to head up the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco).

Shortly after the news, Gerber spoke to swissinfo about the challenges facing Switzerland’s asylum policy.

Gerber has been in charge of the office for over six years and his move to Seco is no surprise, given that he has a strong background in economics.

His appointment comes just weeks after the former Justice minister, Ruth Metzler, was replaced by Christoph Blocher from the rightwing Swiss People’s Party, which gained a second seat in the cabinet.

swissinfo: You’ve just reviewed Switzerland’s asylum policy over the past legislative session – how does it stand?

Jean-Daniel Gerber: We’re where the other European countries are. Switzerland is becoming more restrictive as are Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, France, Italy, Austria and others.

And it’s really not a good development. Because what is happening is a competition of misery. Which country has the most miserable system to avoid to having too much illegal immigration.

What has to be done to combat this competition is to harmonise European asylum systems and I’m quite happy that the EU has taken up this challenge.

Once this process is finished, I think we’ll have a more equitable distribution of illegal [immigrants] in Europe than we have today.

swissinfo: But that’s also a challenge for Switzerland, to be part of the Schengen-Dublin treaty.

J-D.G.: You’re absolutely right. If we are not part of that system we may be faced with a lot of requests from asylum seekers who have already made their requests in another European country but were rejected.

Switzerland would not be able to determine whether an asylum seeker is making a first or second request. In other words we may be faced with a lot of rejected asylum seekers from the rest of Europe without even noticing it.

swissinfo: In recent years, we’ve had two conflicting opinions. The Rightwing says Switzerland’s a soft touch and needs tighter asylum laws. NGOs say asylum policy is becoming too restrictive. How do you counter the two arguments?

J-D.G.: Both sides are right, if one considers their respective political positions. The key is to find the fine line between these two positions.

And I think this has gone well in the last four years [in the sense that] all the decisions proposed by the government to the people for a popular vote were finally passed.

The other proposals from either side were rejected.

swissinfo: Christoph Blocher will now be heading up the Justice Ministry and deciding on asylum issues. Is this one of the reasons why you are leaving your job?

J-D.G.: No I’m not leaving because of Blocher.

But Blocher has always said that he’s in favour of a more restrictive asylum system and I do not think that his opinion will change now he’s in the cabinet. In other words, in the not-too-distant future, we may have a more restrictive asylum system in Switzerland than we have presently.

swissinfo: What about government budget cuts? Are they also affecting asylum policy here in Switzerland?

J-D.G.: Yes, don’t forget that my budget is about SFr950 million. That’s a lot of money and it’s mainly used as social assistance to asylum seekers.

Now from April 1, we’ll have a new system for asylum seekers with unfounded requests: the social assistance will be zero, except in emergency cases.

swissinfo-interview: Jonathan Summerton