Europe should take complete control of migration in its territory, working with the rest of the world to do so, EU justice ministers said Monday as 14 African would-be migrants were reported drowned in an attempt to reach Europe, dpa reported.
"This meeting was truly a total success. If I loved big words, I would even go so far as to say it was an historic afternoon," French Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux, who chaired the informal meeting in the southern French beach resort of Cannes, said.
"Europe will organize legal migration and disorganize illegal immigration" by cracking down on human traffickers, fraudsters, racketeers and the employers of illegal labour while boosting legal migration, he said.
At the meeting, the ministers for immigration of the EU's 27 member states gave their unanimous backing to a pact on immigration and asylum proposed by the French government, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency.
"We are not turning Europe into a bunker, but we are steering migrant flows in the world," German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said.
On the same day, Spanish authorities said that 14 African migrants were feared drowned after their unstable boat was overwhelmed in heavy seas some 100 kilometres off southern Spain, in a stark reminder of the scale and gravity of the migration issue.
Monday's EU meeting was informal, meaning that the agreement reached is not binding. However, it paves the way for EU leaders to adopt it as a binding political pledge at a summit in October.
"If this pact is adopted, nothing will be the way it was before," Hortefeux said.
The pact asks EU member states to strengthen the fight against illegal immigration, to crack down on the employers of illegal migrants and to live up to their responsibility to expel illegal residents from their territory.
"Mastering migrant flows. Making integration easier. Promoting development in solidarity with countries of origin. Promoting national identity," a pamphlet published for the meeting said.
At the same time, the pact urges EU members to put in place targeted immigration policies which would attract the workers their labour markets need, especially highly-qualified ones, into Europe.
And it calls on the EU to work closely with countries of origin and transit, supporting development on their territories and making it easier for immigrants to send money home as a way of making it more attractive for future potential migrants to stay at home.
However, questions remain as to whether the EU will be able to put those policies into action effectively enough to make a difference on the ground.
For example, the bloc has already pledged 23 billion euros (36.1 billion dollars) in development aid to Africa over the next five years, raising the question of how much more member states would be willing to contribute, and whether their contribution would be enough to bring the radical economic changes needed in the continent.
Moreover, most of the bloc's policies hinge on finding common ground with not only the homelands of most migrants, but the countries through which they pass.
That binds the EU to seek cooperation on development, economic growth, democratization and border control with states such as Russia, Belarus, Libya, Iraq and Somalia - partners with whom talks have not been easy in the past.
Indeed, in late June, South American leaders attacked an EU deal harmonizing rules on detaining and expelling illegal residents as "shameful" and "discriminatory," leading diplomats to warn that it could be hard to convince international partners that the EU's far more sweeping migration pact is fair.