Merkel set to tackle EU immigration

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told Spanish leader José Luis Zapatero that illegal immigration is a Europe wide problem.

“Immigration is not a Spanish problem; it could affect any other country,” said Merkel during bilateral talks with Zapatero in Germany on Tuesday.

The German chancellor promised that she would do what she could to help tackle immigration when Berlin assumes the EU’s rotating presidency in January 2007.

And she pledged an overhaul of the EU’s border control agency Frontex to make it “more practically-oriented.”

Merkel also said she would revamp what she called the EU’s “clumsy” development aid policy, adding that Europe needed to intensify its links with Africa.

“Africa is not far away from Europe but very very near”, Merkel warned.

Spain has turned away from its former lax immigration policy due to continuing waves of African migrants and rising criticism from among EU ranks, especially France’s interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

Meanwhile, justice commissioner Franco Frattini praised Madrid’s decision to stop its mass regularisation of illegal immigrants.

Frattini said that some EU states had been reluctant to boost funds for the EU’s border agency because regularisation of illegal migrants sent the wrong message.

Earlier this year Spain provided around 600,000 illegal immigrants with papers, without consulting other EU member states.

Hundreds of Africans, mostly from Senegal, land on the Spanish controlled Canary Islands every day. Since the beginning of the year 22,000 illegal immigrants have arrived in the islands.

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