The European commission on Monday warned of a fresh wave of tens of thousands of illegal migrants arriving on the beaches of southern Europe this summer and issued an appeal for help in curbing migration from sub-Saharan Africa.
Franco Frattini, the European Union commissioner for justice and home affairs, warned that there would be a new wave of migration when warmer weather arrives in April and accused EU member states of failing to establish permanent marine patrols to stem the tide of migrants in the Mediterranean and off the western coast of Africa.
Frontex, the agency responsible for protecting Europe against illegal immigrants, is to appeal for help in the next few days to all 27 EU member countries.
The number of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa arriving on the Canary Islands rose to 31 000 last year, six times the figure of 2005, according to EU figures.
Frontex, the fledgling agency tasked with patrolling EU borders, is to write to members this week appealing for helicopters, aircraft, vessels and other equipment for marine operations.
Last summer Frontex units were described as severely overstretched and had struggled to patrol seas off the Canary Islands and Malta.
At a meeting in Dresden of EU interior and justice ministers, Frattini said the equipment had to be made available by April, ”otherwise it will be too late to react to the flow of migrants in the summer season which begins in April or May”.
”We have to be ready for spring, no later than that,” he said.
Malta and southern Italy have been inundated with thousands of migrants who arrive often penniless after paying high fees to people-traffickers for the perilous voyages on makeshift vessels. Many perish at sea trying to reach the EU.
The Portuguese Interior Minister, Antonio Costa, told the meeting that the wretched scenes would not be restricted to the EU’s southern Mediterranean borders, but could also be repeated to the east and to the north.
He called on the new EU members of Eastern Europe to develop a crisis management strategy.
Wolfgang Schäuble, the German Interior Minister, also called for the Frontex agency to be beefed up.
On Monday night, Frattini was also expected to raise proposals for a new system of selective immigration to the EU modelled on the US green card system.
Frattini is keen to introduce a coordinated European scheme aimed at attracting highly skilled immigrants to fill niches in the European labour market, notably in the fields of IT and computer technology.
Germany, which has had its own green card scheme in place since 2000 but which is failing to attract as many young professionals or highly qualified personnel as it needs, is leading the resistance to the commission’s plans, arguing not against a European green card itself, but insisting that such decisions should be left to national governments, not Brussels.
A conference in Potsdam outside Berlin last month heard that despite six years of green card programmes in Germany there had been no change in the country’s acute lack of computer and hi-tech personnel.
A study by a management consultancy found that Germany had made no progress in recruiting immigrant professionals because the green card scheme was over-regulated.
Frattini is expected to table his formal green card proposals later this year. The card would be valid across the EU and would enable a highly qualified immigrant employee who has gained permission to work in one EU country to move to another automatically. – Guardian Unlimited Â