Brussels, 21/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - The United Kingdom hopes the Seville Summit will relaunch the common asylum and immigration policy and use every possible means to put pressure on third countries from whence illegal migrants come. "Despite some progress, the worthwhile action we agreed at Tampere is bogged down" (European Area of Justice, Security and Freedom), writes Tony Blair to his European counterparts. "We have missed deadlines on asylum, made slow progress encouraging returns, and need to do more to secure the EU's frontiers", he continues, expecting the Seville Summit will rekindle action in these three fields. More especially, the United Kingdom is hoping for a "tougher approach" towards countries from which the illegal immigrants come, and hopes the EU will assess the performance of countries and "be willing to use the EU's economic and financial clout with those which are not cooperating". To put it clearly, by going as far as to link aid to development with the fight against illegal immigration and readmission agreements. Tony Blair, who had sent this letter to Jose Maria Aznar just a few days before his visit to London on Monday, welcomed Spain's determination to put illegal immigration on the agenda of the Seville Summit. After the meeting, Mr Blair said he did not want a "fortress Europe" but that there must be a certain order and rules on how people enter Europe.
In an address delivered in Birmingham on Tuesday to show "how Europe makes us all more secure", British Minister for Europe Peter Hain gave his assurance that only belonging to Europe and cooperation between the Fifteen would make it possible to combat terrorism, the trade in human beings and organised crime. "And only by cooperation like this can we resist the dangerous scapegoating, racism and false populism of Europe's Le Pens", he said. But this takes "more action" on the part of Europe.
The European Commission welcomed the interest shown by the Heads of State and Government to the problem of illegal immigration. It recalled in a short press release that it has presented "all relevant proposals on this subject".