Mediterranean ministers meet in bid to tackle immigration crisis

Ministers from the EU’s eight most southern member states are meeting tomorrow (29 September) to discuss ideas to put to the rest of the EU on how to tackle illegal immigration.

Foreign and interior ministers meeting in Madrid will discuss the patrolling and monitoring of the Mediterranean as well as identification and repatriation of illegal immigrants. Ministers may also propose common rules for dealing with immi-gration and managing borders and suggest additional EU funding to tackle the issue. Their proposals are expected to go before EU leaders meet-ing in Finland next month.

A letter from the leaders of the eight states (the seven bordering the Mediterranean plus Portugal) sent this week to Commission President José Manuel Barroso says: "Each member state must contribute to the fight against illegal immigration, which concerns the whole Union and not only the countries guarding its external borders."

Countries battling record numbers of immigration on Europe’s southern border suffered a setback last week during an informal meeting of ministers in Tampere when other member states expressed doubts about EU funding for the processing, maintenance and possible return of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers and their distribution to other member states.

"Those who want to solve problems must stop asking for the money of others," said Wolfgang Schäuble, interior minister of Germany, which has hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.

"The asylum-seeking phenomenon up to this year had an annual exchequer implication for Ireland of €370 million. Is there anybody in Europe who wants to contribute to that?" asked Michael McDowell, Ireland’s justice minister.

Jan Kohout, the Czech Republic’s ambassador to the EU, this week said immigrants arriving from Africa in boats were the "visible part of the influx" while his country received thousands of immigrants from India, Pakistan and central Asian republics who slip across the borders.

But Franco Frattini, the justice, freedom and security commissioner, said that if the issue was not tackled on an EU-wide basis all member states would be confronted with the problem given the easy way illegal immigrants could move around the EU. He added: "Either we share the economic burden or you will be forced to take people."

Frattini said he wanted to further examine the possibility of using the EU’s Solidarity Fund - reserved for natural disasters - to help tackle immigration or even terrorist attacks.

Ministers from the EU’s eight most southern member states are meeting tomorrow (29 September) to discuss ideas to put to the rest of the EU on how to tackle illegal immigration.