[lifeinitaly.com] Venice, November 24 – Interior Minister
Roberto Maroni on Tuesday urged the European Union to help
Mediterranean countries deal with migration pressures.
Addressing a summit of western Mediterranean interior
ministers, Maroni said more resources were critical if such
countries were to effectively manage the large number of African
migrants entering Mediterranean countries en route to the EU.
He recalled that the EU was in the process of finalizing
its home affairs policy programme for the next five years,
providing a “historic“ opportunity to request more help.
The so-called Stockholm Programme, drawn up to succeed the
five-year Hague Programme, is expected to be finalized and
signed at the EU summit in mid-December.
“It is to be hoped the Mediterranean will receive enough
resources and attention to help it deal with the great
challenges posed by immigration to this area,“ Maroni said.
“In order to better manage legal immigration, the
procedures for fighting illegal immigration and human
trafficking must first be strengthened“.
The daylong summit in Venice was attended by the EU’s five
Mediterranean countries, as well as five North African states:
Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania.
In addition to discussing migration, ministers also
considered the issue of terrorism, Maroni said after the
conference.
All delegates agreed that the Internet was a crucial
battleground in the fight against terrorism, he said.
“We have decided to join forces to prevent the
radicalization and recruitment of terrorism and prevent new
information technologies, such as the Internet, being used for
terrorist purposes,“ the Italian minister explained.
“This is an important decision that will see us working
together to block such sites and the exchange of dangerous
information in our ten countries“.
Ahead of the conference, Maroni met with French Immigration
Minister Eric Besson for bilateral talks on migration matters.
Sources said they agreed to raise joint proposals for
additional resources at the next European council of interior
ministers at the end of November.
The centre-right governments of President Nicolas Sarkozy
and Premier Silvio Berlusconi have several times adopted a
common approach to migration in the context of the EU.
Last month, Sarkozy and Berlusconi sent a joint letter to
the European Commission and the EU’s duty president calling for
“concrete decisions and actions“ in migrants‘ countries of
origin.
Sarkozy reiterated his determination to fight illegal
immigration on Tuesday, stressing there would be no amnesties
for migrants arriving in France without documents.
The immigration issue was also raised at a separate
bilateral meeting between Italian Welfare Minister Maurizio
Sacconi and his Spanish counterpart Celestino Corbacho in Rome
on Tuesday.
Both men agreed on the need for “more robust cooperation
in tackling migration flows,“ sources said, while Corbacho
remarked afterwards that there “a growing need for a
coordinated immigration policy“.
