Brussels, 02/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - Twenty five ASEM members and the European Commission will be meeting in Lanzerote, Spain on 4-5 April to discuss co-operation in the management of migratory flows. EU Member States, Brunei, China, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam will be discussing the organisation of legal immigration and the fight against illegal immigration. This will be the first ASEM ministerial meeting on this issue, pointed out the Spanish Presidency, which also indicated that the meeting was taking place on the initiative of Spain, Germany and China.
On Thursday, European and Asian delegations will meet up separately before collectively analysing, on Friday, the causes for these migratory flows (identification of regions where flow stems from and the transit, immigration, co-operation and development), problems of regulated immigration (admissions policy, job access, family regroupment, integration) and irregulated immigration (itineraries and applied procedures, special references to forged documentation, co-operation in the fight against criminal organisations involved in human trafficking. A joint declaration will be made at the end of the conference.