EU will boost border controls to curb illegal immigration, Van Rompuy says [Update]
European Commission President Herman Van Rompuy said on Friday that the EU would take “concrete, operational proposals for a more efficient use” of EU resources to tackle the migration policy that could include more funding for the EU’s Frontex border agency.
Speaking in Brussels at a summit of EU leaders, Van Rompuy said the EU would also intensify its fight against human traffickers and implement a new EU border surveillance system.
EU leaders discussed the need for an overhaul of the EU’s migration policy, following several deadly shipwrecks in the Mediterranean.
“All of Europe has been shocked by the events in Lampedusa,” Mr. Van Rompuy said.
On the first day of the summit on Thursday, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said he would push for a solution to the “acute problem” of illegal immigration which is particularly keenly felt in the bloc’s external border states.
He, and the leaders of another eight countries on the EU’s external borders including Italy, Spain and Malta, were expected to lobby on Friday for a more active role by the EU in tackling the flow of undocumented migrants into their countries.
However, according to reports, their peers in northern Europe, are reportedly wary of a more migrant-friendly policy as many have problems with increasingly popular right-wing parties
