Brussels, 06/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - This Tuesday's meeting had been highly significant for the Stability Pact and very important for the development of regional cooperation in the field of immigration and asylum, with the EU's support. It enabled to underline that need, for the EU accession candidate countries and the EU, but also the ACP countries, to work together and joint efforts to fight against illegal immigration. Thus is the sentiment expressed by Mrs Gun-Britt Andersson, Swedish Secretary of State for Development Cooperation, Asylum and Immigration policy, and by Vladimir Drobnjak, Ambassador for Croatia following the works of the first formal meeting of the Steering Committee for the "immigration Asylum" initiative in the Stability Pact, whose launch will take place on Tuesday 3 April in Brussels.
The aim of this initiative is to developed asylum and immigration system in the five countries taking part in the stability and association process, namely: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It operates through "twinned" agreements aiming to establish a formal network of liaison agents (official representatives and professional) in the Member States and in the States of the region concerned, and which, through a permanent support cell, will follow, very closely, the developments in asylum and migration policies in the countries concerned. This support cell will report and bring its full technical and administrative support to the Steering Committee mentioned above. During her speech, Mrs Andersson spoke in favour of a balanced approach of asylum and immigration policies in this region, approach that is on the one hand reassuring against the problems caused by illegal immigration, but which, on the other hand, takes into consideration the issue of protection and the need to create legal subsidiaries to improve the freedom of movement of people, all this in accordance with the priorities of the Swedish Presidency of the EU in the matter.
This meeting follows on from the meeting, last week in Sarajevo, between the EU Troika and the Minister for Home Affairs for the region and their joint statement concerning the follow-up to the Zagreb Summit in terms of regional cooperation in the field of asylum and immigration (see EUROPE of 31 March, p.13).