Illegal immigration on agenda at EU summit
The problems posed by a relentless increase in the influx of undocumented immigrants into the European Union, in the wake of the drowning of hundreds of would-be migrants off the coast of Lampedusa earlier this month, was high on the agenda of talks at a European Union leaders’ summit in Brussels on Friday.
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.
