Ministers from Europe's Mediterranean nations gathered yesterday to discuss illegal immigration amid criticism that a Spanish amnesty for undocumented foreigners has triggered a relentless wave of poor Africans trying to reach the Canary Islands.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative French interior minister and presidential hopeful, has come to the Madrid meeting with a proposal for all EU members to be held to the same admission standards.
"We can't all continue to have our own immigration policies, as we can clearly see we are all confronted by the same problem," he told reporters on Thursday in Paris.
Sarkozy has said last year's amnesty for around 600,000 undocumented foreigners in Spain encouraged other Africans to try to reach the Canary Islands or the Spanish mainland, seeking a foothold in Europe to flee grinding poverty at home.
So far, more than 24,000 Africans have been caught trying to reach the Spanish archipelago off west Africa this year, about five times the number for all of last year. Italy has caught more than 12,000 trying to reach Sicily.
The 25-member EU has no common immigration policy and the issue is handled individually by member states.
The bloc has been trying to devise a joint plan for years, but the effort has bogged down over the complexity of aligning national immigration rules and discord over whether countries should give up control over who they let across their borders.
Yesterday's one-day meeting was meant to discuss this effort and let countries compare notes on how they cope with illegal immigration from Africa.
It brings together foreign and interior ministers or lower-level delegations from Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Malta and Slovenia, and several senior EU officials, including Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero criticized Sarkozy specifically in parliamentary debate on Wednesday. He said that given the riots that swept poor, immigrant-rich neighborhoods last year in the Paris suburbs, Sarkozy was in no position to give Spain lessons on how to deal with and assimilate foreigners.
Zapatero said that the Spanish government "does not accept what the French interior minister might have to say, after what we saw in the neighborhoods of Paris."
The French government is pushing a bill in parliament that would stiffen the rules for immigrants in France, establish a quota system and give authorities power to cherry-pick who gets in.
Zapatero's government has defended its amnesty as a way to root out a flourishing underground economy, end employer abuse of undocumented workers and get them to pay taxes into government coffers. Officials say it was a one-time deal, with no plans for a repetition any time soon.
Last week, EU justice and interior ministers meeting in Finland avoided making new pledges to provide aid in response to urgent pleas from Spain, Italy, Greece and Malta for more help in dealing with illegal immigrants from Africa. Spain has complained that only three EU members contributed planes or boats last month to a hastily arranged EU plan to patrol African waters and prevent more departures.
At that meeting, too, several member states condemned the Spanish amnesty, which they saw as the perfect way to lure more Africans who might eventually end up on the streets of Berlin, Vienna or anywhere else in the bloc.
"It is no solution to legalize illegal people," Austrian Justice Minister Karin Gastinger said.
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