Spain appeals to EU for help on migrants
Spain's Justice Minister Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar launched a new, urgent call for help at two-day talks here, saying his country could not handle the massive numbers of Africans trying to get to the Canary Islands. "Spain is determined," Lopez Aguilar said. "We are not going to stop until the whole of the European Union provides for an answer, because an answer is needed. ... A European response at large scale is needed."
Other southern EU nations, including Italy, Greece and Malta, are backing Madrid's call for more money and for the EU's new external borders agency, Frontex, to coordinate more long-term patrols of the Mediterranean Sea and off Africa's Atlantic coast.
Lopez Aguilar also appealed to other EU governments to do more to increase aid to Africa's poorest nations, from where most of the illegal migrants come, seeking a better life in Europe.
More than 23,000 migrants have made dangerous ocean crossings from northwest Africa to Spain's Canary Islands so far this year, leading to the drowning of many and a near-collapse of the system of holding facilities on the islands.
Only a few EU states — Finland and Italy each sent one plane, while Portugal and Italy sent boats — have come to help Spain. Madrid is providing additional vessels and helicopters.
EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini recommended the EU set up permanent "rapid reaction teams" with boats, planes and experts to help EU countries hit by large numbers of illegals.
Germany's Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said his country was willing to show solidarity, but was reluctant to give more money or other aid. "If you really want to solve a problem, you should not start by calling for other peoples' money," he told reporters. "I know the story. We have carried that burden (of handling asylum seekers) for a long time."
Other ministers were also critical of Spain's handling of illegal migrants.
Austrian Justice Minister Karin Gastinger said Spain's decision to grant amnesty to hundreds of thousands of undocumented foreigners made it a magnet for poor African migrants.
"It is no solution to legalize illegal people, as it was done in Spain in 2005, because this gives some kind of pull factor to the people in Africa as we saw in the last months," Gastinger said.
Finland, which holds the EU presidency, has suggested EU governments set up a so-called solidarity fund to cover the costs of processing asylum seekers. The plan would grant a sum from the EU budget to member governments for every registered asylum seeker entered into an EU database.
Italy's Interior Minister Giuliano Amato suggested money would be better spent in Africa, in the countries where the asylum seekers were coming from.
"The benefits of this money would be higher this way," he said.
Guenther Beckstein, interior minister of the German state of Bavaria, opposed the plan. "Twenty-thousand or 25,000 fugitives landing on the Canary Islands won't ruin Spain," Beckstein said. "A few years ago, we had 448,000 refugees in a single year and we managed that by ourselves, with difficulties, but we managed."
Meanwhile, the European Commission said it would give euro3.3 million (US$4.2 million) to Spain, Italy and Malta to strengthen first aid and reception centers for illegal immigrants in the Canary Islands, and for maritime surveillance of Malta and the Italian island of Lampedusa.
The talks on immigration taking place in this lakeside city were meant to review the EU's effort to draft a common immigration policy by 2010. It was in Tampere where EU leaders in 1999 decided to launch efforts at a joint immigration and asylum policy, in the wake of larger flows of refugees into Europe.
However, progress has been bogged down due to the complexity of aligning national immigration rules, as well as strong disagreements over whether national authorities should give up control over who they should let into their countries.