Nice, 08/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - Under the chapter "Area of Freedom, Security and Justice", the Conclusions of the European Council of Nice state that the Heads of State and Government "took note with interest" of the letter from the Italian and Spanish Prime Ministers, Giuliano Amato and Jose Maria Aznar on combating illegal immigration, and invited the Council to take "initiatives along these lines involving, if need be, the applicant countries".
In a letter to President Chirac, Messrs. Amato and Aznar considered that "by applying the principle of solidarity between Member states and drawing the obvious consequences from the concept of common external borders", Member States, "if possible all, but even only a few, at least initially, should engage in operational collaboration in controlling the external borders, with the goal of achieving police forces acting more intensively on the ground". Recalling that their two countries were in the process of launching an "operational experiment" of this type, Amato and Aznar say that they would like to transform this experiment into a "Community initiative, possibly achieved, initially, in the form of closer cooperation".