EU Braces for Daunting Challenge of Illegal Immigration

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, June 23, 2002

EU Braces for Daunting Challenge of Illegal Immigration

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Leaders from the 15 member states of the European Union (EU) and its executive arm, the European Commission (EC), on Saturday mapped out a common action plan aimed at stemming illegal immigration, a daunting challenge to many national governments on the continent.

The leaders agreed to adopt common qualification criteria for asylum-seekers and joint operations in external border control besides strengthening information exchange.

The influx of illegal immigrants into Europe from many underdeveloped countries poses grave threats not only to social security and economic stability, but also to the political landscape in Europe. Unbalanced level of development and the widening income gap sent many making the exodus for a better life.

Latest statistics indicate an annual influx of illegal immigrants of up to 500,000 into the EU, pushing the total number of illegal immigrants up to over three million. The source and transit countries of illegal immigrants are scattered around the globe, most of them are either war-ravaged or shockingly impoverished, or both. They enter the EU territory with no qualified papers or forged ones, or are simply smuggled in by human traffickers. Some asylum-seekers continue to stay after their applications are rejected.

Having no honorable means of sustaining a livelihood, the illegal immigrants are often forced to struggle for life in the inhumane conditions of the underworld and therefore readily resortto crime. Many of them became perpetrators of violent crimes.

Meanwhile, the existence of the large number of illegal immigrants exerts a negative impact on the EU's shrinking labor market. The unemployment rate in the euro zone and the EU as a whole stands at 8.3 percent and 7.6 percent respectively in May, much higher than the U.S. and Japanese data.

As the side-effects of illegal immigration grow increasingly eye-catching, the EU public burst out against it. EU leaders have met several times to work out plans to this end. They agreed to tighten common external border control, strengthen exchange of visa information and coordination, enhance deportation capability and demand cooperation from third countries.

However, illegal immigration has also helped paint a different political landscape in Europe. The far-right anti-immigration parties made the most of growing nationalism in recent national elections and gained ground.

National Front Leader Le Pen's entry into the second round of the French presidential election and the shocking performance of the Pim Fortuyn List in the Netherlands are two cases in point, not to mention the recent rise of populist anti-immigration parties like the Freedom Party in Austria and the Northern League in Italy and the People's Party in Denmark.

Immigration topped the agenda of the EU summit in Seville, Spain, where European leaders hope to achieve a breakthrough on the issue.

While some say the idea of an EU border police to replace national frontier control is a step too far for now, the leaders reached consensus on combating illegal immigration through more and closer cooperation among EU member states.

EC President Romano Prodi, at a press conference in Brussels onTuesday, pledged full support for a plan forwarded by Spain at a recent meeting of the general affairs council in Luxembourg. The plan contains a clause on suspending trade agreements with third countries failing to check the flow of illegal immigrants.

France, Sweden, Portugal, Finland and Luxembourg disagreed withthe proposals, viewing non-cooperation of third countries as an unsound reason for retaliation against these countries.

The EU's aging population and falling birth rates necessitate the influx of foreign labor to reactivate its economy stuck in lowgear. But illegal immigration also hurts and how to tackle illegalimmigration has become a big challenge for EU leaders. Whatever peripheral measures they opt to take, aid for poor countries in economic development and poverty reduction will certainly hold thekey.

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