Brussels, 12/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - Spain, Italy and France have sent a joint letter to the Finnish Presidency of the European Commission, and especially to President José Manuel Durao Barroso as well as the Commissioner responsible for immigration policy, Franco Frattini, calling for European solidarity against illegal immigration to be a priority theme of the next EU summits. “We decided to approach the EU so that joint action against immigration is on the agenda of the informal summit in October (in Lahti, Finland) and of the European Council in December”, Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi said on Sunday on the fringe of the ASEM Summit. The president of the EU Council, Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, immediately responded in a positive way to this request. The Lahti summit, which was to be devoted to energy supply security and competitiveness, will now have immigration as its third chapter and, in Finland on 20 October, it will be up to Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to open the debate on this theme.
Mr Barroso had written to the 25 on 7 September calling on them to show greater solidarity towards Spain and the other countries most affected by illegal migration flows (EUROPE 9260).