By Bruno Waterfield - 30th November 2005
An EU-Africa summit on migration will take place in the first half of 2006 as Europe cracks down on illegal immigration but prepares to open the door to economic migrants.
The European Commission is to fast-track border management measures after a hot summer of Mediterranean immigration crises and tragedies on the North African coast.
One feasibility option to be considered by the EU’s FRONTEX borders agency is a Mediterranean Coastal Patrols Network to police Europe’s frontline in the war on illegal immigration.
“This network would ensure permanent contact and coordination between member states’ sea border surveillance authorities… and would also connect similar services of North African countries that could be involved in the development of this project,” state proposals published on Wednesday.
“The EU must look into the technical feasibility of establishing a surveillance system to eventually cover the whole of the Mediterranean Sea, thereby providing the necessary tools to detect illegal immigration and save lives at sea in a timely and efficient way.”
Commission proposals for rapid reaction teams to rush to hotspots, such as the North Moroccan Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, are also planned.
“The commission will bring forward by spring 2006 a proposal for the creation of teams of national experts able to provide rapid technical and operational assistance on border control to member states faced with exceptional migratory pressures or influxes of migrants,” states the text.
Brussels is also to launch a possibly controversial review of maritime rescue law and its application to illegal immigrants crossing Europe’s sea borders.
“The commission will present its analysis of the existing international instruments on the law of the sea and their efficiency in the fight against illegal migration by March 2006.”
Key to the commission’s external borders strategy on immigration is linkage of EU policy to development issues, in a bid to tackle the root causes of migration.
Shocking scenes, and the deaths, of sub-Saharan immigrants attempting to scale razor wire fences in Ceuta and Melilla have prompted an EU-Africa summit.
“Given the importance of developing a clear common political approach, a ministerial conference on migration between Africa and the EU will take place in the first half of 2006,” proposes the commission.
EU officials are also to draw up ‘country strategy papers’ targeting specific African, Caribbean and other countries with “appropriate, concrete actions in the area of migration and development”.
Key to a partnership or development approach on migration will be moves to crack open Europe’s door to legal economic migrants.
The prospect of remittances from legal migrants working in Europe will be a spur to countries of origin to cooperate on immigration, the commission hopes.
The EU executive is also hopeful of winning the argument that Europe’s needs a legal migration system to meet labour shortages and to take some of the pressure off borders.
The new proposals from Commission Vice-President Franco Frattini, responsible for justice, and EU external relations chief Benita Ferrero-Waldner were published on Wednesday.
EU leaders asked the commission, after the Hampton Court October summit, to draw up proposals for more coordinated action against illegal migration but at the same time open the EU door to legal economic migration.
The new package of proposals will be discussed by a council of EU justice ministers in Brussels on Thursday.
Frattini is expected to table a programme of action on legal immigration on December 21 including an EU approach to economic migration, ‘regularisation’ of immigrants, the establishment of recruitment and training centres in countries of origin.
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