EU coastguard service to control immigration

The European Commission will next week propose setting up a European coastguard service and expert teams on asylum as a way of tackling immigration to Europe.

A surveillance system to monitor the EU’s maritime borders and a list of equipment available to member states for control and surveillance of borders are also to be proposed on 30 November.

The plan is an attempt to draft an EU migration policy to address illegal immigration and its root causes and tackle the problems faced by immigrants living in Europe. Record influxes to Europe this year from Africa have prompted the EU to address migration urgently. A ministerial meeting in Libya this week (22-23 November) between the EU and the African Union is expected to result in a political commitment for both sides to co-operate.

Franco Frattini, the commissioner for justice, freedom and security, told the meeting yesterday (22 November) of plans to set up EU "migration support teams" to help African states manage asylum and immigration and help Africans find work in Europe where labour shortages exist. "The EU will also support initiatives on labour matching, with the aim of facilitating the link between supply and demand," he said.

The Commission proposals next week are likely to be controversial because they may involve increases to the budget of Frontex, the EU’s border agency, currently set at €21.2 million for 2007. The Commission will also suggests using other funds, such as the External Border Fund (€1.82bn for 2007-13) and the European Refugee Fund (€10 million) to finance the coastguards, the surveillance system and deal with large numbers of immigrants arriving at borders.

The setting up of joint teams of experts from member states to help identify immigrants and process asylum claims has also provoked questions as to which law would apply. "We have nothing against it but in practical and operational terms there are a lot of questions," says Kris Pollet, executive officer for justice and home affairs in Amnesty International’s Brussels office.

The Commission will propose the coastguard service as a permanent branch of Frontex made up of people and equipment from member states operating in four patrol zones - the Canary Islands and the western, central and eastern Mediterranean. The idea is expected to be included in the conclusions of next month’s European Council (14-15 December).

A separate communication next week will report on work this year with African states on migration and suggest making it easier for students and family members of African migrants to come to Europe.

Other suggestions likely to be included in the political declaration from the ministerial meeting in Libya are making it easier, cheaper and faster for migrants to send money home and dealing with brain drain and the lack of jobs in parts of Africa.

Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, president of Mauritania, one of the main transit states crossed by immigrants on their way to the Canary Islands, said EU funding was not enough to stop people wanting to leave Africa. "These countries have to develop, investors must become interested, and Europe must invest and go to these countries that are at the same the time rich and poor," he said, during a visit to Brussels last week. "They are poor because they do not have the means to develop their resources and economies. But they have potential, if the investors show enough interest in them."

"If people have nothing to eat at home, if they have no jobs, if they cannot support themselves, they will cross the borders to where they can live and eat, and nobody can stop them."

The European Commission will next week propose setting up a European coastguard service and expert teams on asylum as a way of tackling immigration to Europe.