Europeans and Africans to Tackle Clandestine Immigration
July 11, 2006
In a statement read to the participants of the immigration conference in the Moroccan capital, French President Jacques Chirac called on Monday for African and European nations to tackle mass clandestine immigration, "with respect for human dignity but with firmness."
"At stake are the interests of the men and women who risk the journey" to Europe, those of the Africans living there legally and that of Europeans faced with the challenge of globalization, Chirac said.
Illegal migration required an "energetic fight against trafficking networks" along with "police and legal cooperation to improve border surveillance" and the "proper implementation of readmission agreements," Chirac said.
"But first we need to confirm Europe's commitment at Africa's side to a partnership for development," he said, whether by combating disease pandemics or building water, transport and communications infrastructure.
Tightening the rules
France recently adopted a new immigration law which seeks to encourage more qualified workers and tightens entrance rules for other foreigners, notably for immigrants' families. It also eliminates automatic citizenship for illegal immigrants who have lived 10 years in the country.
The law has been attacked as "racist" by African campaigners, and France's Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was greeted with angry protests on a recent trip to western Africa.
In an interview published Monday in the Moroccan newspaper Le Matin, Sarkozy said that managing migration was "one of the keys for renewing the relationship between Europe and Africa."
"How can we restore the confidence of Africa's youth and persuade them that there is a future beyond migration? Our destinies are tied: Africa's failure today would be Europe's disaster tomorrow," he warned in the interview.
A mass influx
The conference was prompted in particular by the mass influx of African migrants to Italy and Spain, trafficked across the Mediterranean or via the Canary Islands in sometimes barely seaworthy boats. In Spain's Canary Islands, some 9,000 African migrants were intercepted in the first five months of 2006 -- with 4,780 in May alone.
Madrid views the Rabat gathering as a major diplomatic success and has been seeking firm commitments from its European and African partners in meeting the challenge.
Spain launched the idea of the conference jointly with Rabat last October after hundreds of sub-Saharan African migrants stormed the Spanish north African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, leaving 14 people dead.
The two-day conference is being co-chaired by the foreign ministers of Morocco, Spain, Senegal, France and Finland, the current president of the European Union.
Security and poverty
The EU commissioner for external relations, Benita Ferrero Waldner, also interviewed in Le Matin Monday, said the conference must look at ways of improving living conditions for Africans.
"We cannot limit our discussion purely to security," she said. "We cannot ignore the primary causes for the population movements which are poverty and insecurity," she told the newspaper.
Spain hopes for a joint action plan that combines security measures with development aid that would persuade would-be migrants, lured by tales of a European Eldorado, to build their lives at home instead.
Recommended security measures include reinforcing frontier controls in countries of origin and improving training and facilities for frontier guards. Some of the economic assistance being considered includes promoting projects in the sectors of agriculture, crafts, tourism and fisheries. The action plan also foresees strengthening legal and police cooperation in curbing people trafficking.