Brussels, 17/02/2006 (Agence Europe) - On Friday, the European Commission adopted a communication to boost the practical cooperation between the Member States on matters of asylum. This communication comes ahead of the implementation of a completely harmonised European asylum regime between now and 2010. The Hague Programme of November 2004, which draws up a list of priorities in the field of justice and home affairs of the EU up to 2010, has set three objectives to improve practical cooperation between the Member States in terms of asylum: -the development of a single procedure to examine applications for international protection; -the adoption of a common approach to information on countries of origin; -deciding upon the details to face up to particular pressure weighing down on the asylum regime and the hosting capacity of certain Member States, due to such factors as their geographical location. In order to achieve these objectives, the communication presents a programme of activities for each field, in order to define best practice at European level and to improve the quality of the decision-making process in terms of asylum. This will involve, for example, setting in place a joint database on information on the countries of origin of the asylum seekers, or pooling resources and specialist knowledge in order to tackle the problems of hosting and processing in case of a sudden influx of a large number of asylum seekers of the external borders of the EU. The Commission is to set up a cooperation network for asylum issues, to be used as a basis for the exchange of information and promotion of best practice between the Member States. EUROPE will return to this issue.