Brussels, 15/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - The Spanish interior minister Mariano Rajoy announced with pleasure on Thursday night that Member States had given a warm welcome to the Presidency's plan to combat clandestine immigration (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.8). The informal JHA Council at Santiago de Compostela had demonstrated the EU's "will" to set a framework for adopting the same policy together to combat illegal immigration, he said. Spain wants the plan to be adopted during the Spanish Presidency and for the measures it has put forward to be fleshed out during subsequent Presidencies. Combating illegal immigration is the area in which they had made the most progress since the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice was created, asserted the President of the JHA Council.
The idea of setting up a visa database of both authorised and rejected visa requests was favourably received with ministers agreeing to amend the type of visas issued so that they incorporated a digital photo to avoid fraud. This decision should be endorsed next week at the General Affairs Council. They also agreed for the first time on the creation of common consular offices. A common pilot office will be opened in Pristina (Kosovo). The Spanish Presidency said it was a matter of agreeing on common criteria for the issuing of visas since it unreasonable for someone who has been refused visas by several countries to be granted one in another. The ministers also said that it would be reasonable to have a common policy on deportation and sending clandestine refugees home, said that Presidency. The EU also covered the issue of agreements on readmission with non-EU countries that "should be multiplied". In terms of external border control, a seminar will be organised in Rome at the end of June to asses the results of the pilot study carried out by Italy.