Brussels, 08/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - EU27 member states' justice and home affairs ministers will be meeting in Luxembourg on Monday 11 and Tuesday 12 April 2011 for a council meeting, focusing on Monday on the recent waves of illegal immigrants from North Africa and the tension between France and Italy over what to do with the more than 20,000 Tunisian immigrants who have landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa since early February. The other big issue of the day will be the European PNR, the system for collecting confidential EU air passenger information.
On the Southern Mediterranean, the EU27 will discuss what to do in the short and longer-term about the wave of immigrants and will publish a conclusions document. In this connection, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström sent the member states a letter on 5 April 2011 setting out action to be taken in the immediate term, and action to be taken in the longer term that the commissioner will be presenting to them ahead of the June 2011 European Council. In the short-term, the commissioner suggested boosting the FRONTEX (EU border agency) mission “Hermes” that was deployed in Italy on 20 February 2011 and urged the member states to reach agreement as soon as possible on changing FRONTEX's rules of operation to give it greater clout and greater resources. There will be a briefing on Monday about the revision, which is expected to be agreed upon by June. The commissioner says that FRONTEX should be allowed to sign agreements with southern Mediterranean countries like Egypt, Morocco and Turkey, on border issues and should have a similar negotiating mandate for Tunisia. In the short-term, the commissioner said that, if required, EU Directive 2001/55 on temporary protection in the event of floods of immigrations might be considered. The Commission believes, however, that this is not needed at the present stage, although Malta has officially requested it (the request was rejected).
In the draft conclusions document as at Friday 8 April, there was no mention of the directive and a source suggests that because most member states have no desire to activate the mechanism, it is highly unlikely that the Council would do so. Malta's request will, however, be discussed over lunch on Monday, and in the conclusions document, the EU27 will point out that some member states have said they are willing to welcome refugees from Libya, in particular those who have arrived in Malta, on their territory. Germany said on Friday that it was willing to accept a number of refugees, but other countries, like France and the United Kingdom, have refused to do so.
On the European PNR, the EU27 will hold an initial debate about the Commission's 2 February proposal. The UK, backed by 17 other member states so far, is calling for the directive to be extended to cover flights within Europe and will be trying to win assurance of this on Monday. The UK says that one possible option would be to only include risky European flights and for inclusion of European flights to be optional. A source suggested on Friday morning that this would mean that Germany would not have to collect confidential passenger details if it didn't want to. Politically however, and even though the question only requires a qualified majority vote, the source said the preference would be to have Germany on their side and there would have to be discussions with Germany to bring it round to the British idea. Financially, the UK says that expanding the system to European flights could be paid for by restricting the initial scope of the Commission's proposal to what are deemed to be risky flights to and from non-EU countries.
The ministers will briefly discuss the introduction of an EU asylum and immigration system by 2012 with a briefing on progress by the presidency and will adopt (under 'Point A') an important draft directive on people from outside the EU who have been living in the EU for a long time to ensure that refugees and other people benefitting from international protection would be given the same rights to remain in the EU for a long time and travel and live in other member states.
There will be a raft of briefings on justice issues but no decisions will be taken. The ministers will look on 12 April at the rights of suspects, tackling the sexual exploitation of children and child pornography (both issues are currently being negotiated with the EP), and progress with the European investigating order. The EU27 will also look at the directive on cyber-attacks, recent European Commission proposals on the recovery of goods in the event of divorce and the recent report on integrating the Roma and helping them access the legal system. (S.P./trans.fl)