Beijing / Brussels, 20/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - A delegation of senior European officials began talks in Beijing on Tuesday on the fight against illegal immigration from China and improvement to repatriation procedures. This is the second series of talks on such issues since the discovery last June of 58 illegal Chinese immigrants asphyxiated in a lorry in Dover. The first talks were in October 2000. "Repatriation comes up against considerable difficulties, if only to identify the nationality of the migrants or obtain visas for the police officers responsible for accompanying them back to China", stressed the head of the European delegation, Jonathan Scheele, who recalled that the measures recommended by the Europeans include the immediate repatriation of clandestine migrants suspected of being Chinese. This is already applied by some States instead of waiting for the end of the identification process in Europe.
Further to recent events involving migrants, Antoine Duquesne, Belgian Minister for the Interior and future President of the EU Internal Affairs Council, pointed out that he planned to organise a European conference on migration. He aims to achieve an overall and balanced policy for migratory flows in Europe and to harmonise asylum and illegal immigration policies.
On the subject of the boat carrying 919 illegal Kurd immigrants that was wrecked off the Varois coast of France, Lionello Garbrici, spokesman of Commissioner Vitorino, stressed that such a tragedy "proves the EU must establish, as a matter of urgency, a common asylum and immigration policy". Pekke Johansson, speaking on behalf of the Swedish Presidency, spoke along the same lines (see on the subject of the recent informal meeting of justice and home affairs ministers in Stockholm, EUROPE of 10 February, p.6/7). Commissioner Antonio Vitorino spoke of his hope that the drama of the Kurd refugees would push the more reticent Member States to approve common rules on asylum and immigration and that the political decision-makers would assume their share of responsibility.
We would point out that the question of illegal immigrants will be on the agenda of the Justice/Home Affairs Council of 15 and 16 March in Brussels. EUROPE recalls that the Commission launched, end November, a wide debate on asylum and immigration, a debate that should result, in December 2001, in common European regimes (see EUROPE of 23 November, p.13).