Strasbourg, 05/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - Opening the first plenary of the new session, the President of the European Parliament Josep Borrell referred to the major events that occurred over the summer and, particularly Parliament's response to the conflict in Lebanon (see EUROPE 9237 for the extraordinary Conference of the Presidents on 20 July and 9244 for the extraordinary meeting of 1st August).
Mr Borrell also stated that this summer “the influx of illegal immigrants” had continued to grow: “10,000 have arrived in Lampedusa since the start of the year, nearly 20,000 in the Canary Islands, four times more than last year, and hundreds have perished at sea. Of course, it is not in Lampedusa nor in Lanzarote that they hope to settle. They are looking quite simply for the European Eldorado and … it is the whole Union that is affected, in its immigration policy as much as in its development policy. We must stop seeing all this as an emergency or something exceptional. We are confronted with a structural and permanent problem … Europe will have to develop a common policy for managing migratory flows … and commit itself to the development of Africa”.
He spoke about the permanent terrorist threat, recalling the planned attacks on British transatlantic flights and the recent bombings in Turkey, and stressed the need to deploy all available means to deal with it, but these means must also be acceptable from the point of view of respecting our liberties. In this context, he noted that the issue of the transfer of air passengers' personal data would be considered in the course of this session, and said that Ireland had brought an action over the directive on data retention.