EU vows to step up efforts on migrants
EU vows to step up efforts on migrants
By James Kanter. Copyright by International Herald Tribune
Published: June 16, 2006
BRUSSELS Facing a wave of migration from abroad and anxiety at home over whether to admit Turkey as a member, leaders of the European Union pledged Friday to step up their efforts to determine which people and countries should be part of the trade bloc.
At the close of a two-day summit meeting, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said that illegal immigration was among "bread and butter key issues" that concerned European citizens.
President Jacques Chirac of France also focused many of his closing remarks on immigration.
"The solution lies first through development," said Chirac, who called for innovative financing and other support for countries in Africa to tackle migration at its origins.
Overhanging the EU summit meeting was the question of where European borders should begin and end - effectively who should be in and out of Europe - after Dutch and French voters last year killed any immediate plans for a new treaty by saying no in referendums, in part out of anxiety that the trade bloc, which now has 25 members, had expanded too far and too fast.
The leaders put any decisions on rewriting the treaty, essentially a rule book for Europe, on hold, setting a 2008 deadline for a new treaty that could ease the eventual entry of a country the size of Turkey, which has a larger population than France.
Even so, in a final declaration, the leaders also signaled movement on the question of membership for Turkey and countries in the western Balkans by pledging to meet in December to discuss whether an EU of about 30 countries would be able to function effectively.
Leaders also turned their attention to practical goals - in particular tackling the arrival of migrants from Africa to destinations like the Canary Islands in Spain and other points in Europe that border the Mediterranean.
In their declaration, the leaders called for a permanent EU system to improve maritime border security and surveillance - so-called rapid border intervention teams - as part of plans for stepped-up air and sea surveillance patrols to control illegal immigration.
The EU's external border security agency, Frontex, which is based in Poland, already has a second unit in the Canary Islands to help Spain coordinate efforts to deal with the thousands of illegal immigrants who have crossed by boat from Africa in recent months. France and Britain are among the countries supporting those efforts, supplying boats and other equipment after Spanish officials appealed for help.
Italy and Malta are also anxious about illegal immigration and, according to EU officials, have pressed for an EU-wide solution.
Under the plan EU leaders supported Friday, countries confronted with large numbers of illegal immigrants could call on the rapid intervention teams to help with boats, planes, helicopters, doctors to care for immigrants and translators at landing points or temporary housing sites.
In July, EU ministers are scheduled to meet in Rabat, Morocco, to work on plans to help African countries do more to stop people from leaving in such large numbers.
For many observers, the practical tone of the declarations on migration and enlargement was reason for optimism, and indicated that the EU project was getting back on track after a year of relative inaction. At the same time, they warned that such steps may do little to harmonize divergent regulations across EU states that stymie a cohesive policy on handling illegal immigrants and that such steps do little more than delay a storm over which countries deserve to be in the EU.
At the center of that storm is likely to be an increasingly fierce argument over whether EU leaders have devised new criteria - "the Union's capacity to absorb new members" and the "future perception of enlargement by citizens" - in order to exclude Turkey from ever joining the club.
In a press conference, Chirac vigorously rebutted suggestions that he had agreed to the language in Friday's declaration to undermine the candidacy of Turkey and other would-be members such as Montenegro and Albania. Nobody was imposing any new conditions for entry into the EU, Chirac said.
But analysts said leaders would eventually have to tackle the question of what happens if a country like Turkey has met all the criteria for EU membership but leaders, or citizens, decide the EU is not ready to admit it.
"Is the whole emphasis on absorption capacity just a way of saying no without saying no?" asked Jacki Davis of the Brussels-based European Policy Center, a pro-European integration think tank. "And is the reference to public opinion simply another way of throwing up new barriers as well?"
Turkey this past week crossed the first hurdle on its long path to EU membership, winning approval for steps it has taken to comply with European standards in science and research. But that represented only one of 35 so- called chapters Turkey must clear before accession, and Ankara is now waiting for a report, due toward the end of this year, on the question of absorption capacity. That report, to be drafted by the European Commission, is expected to take into account the opinion of the European public on how large Europe should become and serve as the basis for discussions between leaders in December.
By James Kanter. Copyright by International Herald Tribune
Published: June 16, 2006
BRUSSELS Facing a wave of migration from abroad and anxiety at home over whether to admit Turkey as a member, leaders of the European Union pledged Friday to step up their efforts to determine which people and countries should be part of the trade bloc.
At the close of a two-day summit meeting, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said that illegal immigration was among "bread and butter key issues" that concerned European citizens.
President Jacques Chirac of France also focused many of his closing remarks on immigration.
"The solution lies first through development," said Chirac, who called for innovative financing and other support for countries in Africa to tackle migration at its origins.
Overhanging the EU summit meeting was the question of where European borders should begin and end - effectively who should be in and out of Europe - after Dutch and French voters last year killed any immediate plans for a new treaty by saying no in referendums, in part out of anxiety that the trade bloc, which now has 25 members, had expanded too far and too fast.
The leaders put any decisions on rewriting the treaty, essentially a rule book for Europe, on hold, setting a 2008 deadline for a new treaty that could ease the eventual entry of a country the size of Turkey, which has a larger population than France.
Even so, in a final declaration, the leaders also signaled movement on the question of membership for Turkey and countries in the western Balkans by pledging to meet in December to discuss whether an EU of about 30 countries would be able to function effectively.
Leaders also turned their attention to practical goals - in particular tackling the arrival of migrants from Africa to destinations like the Canary Islands in Spain and other points in Europe that border the Mediterranean.
In their declaration, the leaders called for a permanent EU system to improve maritime border security and surveillance - so-called rapid border intervention teams - as part of plans for stepped-up air and sea surveillance patrols to control illegal immigration.
The EU's external border security agency, Frontex, which is based in Poland, already has a second unit in the Canary Islands to help Spain coordinate efforts to deal with the thousands of illegal immigrants who have crossed by boat from Africa in recent months. France and Britain are among the countries supporting those efforts, supplying boats and other equipment after Spanish officials appealed for help.
Italy and Malta are also anxious about illegal immigration and, according to EU officials, have pressed for an EU-wide solution.
Under the plan EU leaders supported Friday, countries confronted with large numbers of illegal immigrants could call on the rapid intervention teams to help with boats, planes, helicopters, doctors to care for immigrants and translators at landing points or temporary housing sites.
In July, EU ministers are scheduled to meet in Rabat, Morocco, to work on plans to help African countries do more to stop people from leaving in such large numbers.
For many observers, the practical tone of the declarations on migration and enlargement was reason for optimism, and indicated that the EU project was getting back on track after a year of relative inaction. At the same time, they warned that such steps may do little to harmonize divergent regulations across EU states that stymie a cohesive policy on handling illegal immigrants and that such steps do little more than delay a storm over which countries deserve to be in the EU.
At the center of that storm is likely to be an increasingly fierce argument over whether EU leaders have devised new criteria - "the Union's capacity to absorb new members" and the "future perception of enlargement by citizens" - in order to exclude Turkey from ever joining the club.
In a press conference, Chirac vigorously rebutted suggestions that he had agreed to the language in Friday's declaration to undermine the candidacy of Turkey and other would-be members such as Montenegro and Albania. Nobody was imposing any new conditions for entry into the EU, Chirac said.
But analysts said leaders would eventually have to tackle the question of what happens if a country like Turkey has met all the criteria for EU membership but leaders, or citizens, decide the EU is not ready to admit it.
"Is the whole emphasis on absorption capacity just a way of saying no without saying no?" asked Jacki Davis of the Brussels-based European Policy Center, a pro-European integration think tank. "And is the reference to public opinion simply another way of throwing up new barriers as well?"
Turkey this past week crossed the first hurdle on its long path to EU membership, winning approval for steps it has taken to comply with European standards in science and research. But that represented only one of 35 so- called chapters Turkey must clear before accession, and Ankara is now waiting for a report, due toward the end of this year, on the question of absorption capacity. That report, to be drafted by the European Commission, is expected to take into account the opinion of the European public on how large Europe should become and serve as the basis for discussions between leaders in December.
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