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How to better monitor migrant flows. See 2005!

Tony Blair during the UK Presidency of the EU - here at Hampton Court (Credit: European Commission, B2 Archive)
Tony Blair during the UK Presidency of the EU - here at Hampton Court (Credit: European Commission, B2 Archive)

(B2) Rummaging through my archives, I found these conclusions of a European summit, held at the end of December 2005, under the British presidency of the Union (Tony Blair in office at the time). They were a follow-up to the informal meeting held at Hampton Court in October 2005. That was ten years ago. It feels like a century ago! But the recommendations of the '25' (at the time) seem quite current...

« Measures will have to be taken to reduce irregular migration flows and the loss of human life, ensure the safe return of illegal immigrants, provide more durable solutions for refugees and build capacities to better manage migration, including maximizing the benefits for all partners of legal migration, while fully respecting human rights and the right to seek asylum. stated the conclusions.

This meeting did not stop there, it established a series of actions to be implemented during the year 2006. I cannot resist the idea of ​​also mentioning some of the ideas envisaged:

launch, as early as possible in 2006, a feasibility study on the strengthening of control and surveillance of the southern maritime border of the EU, namely the Mediterranean, and on the establishment a Mediterranean coastal patrol network involving EU Member States and North African countries.

• Examine whether the establishment, by the end of 2006, of a surveillance system which should cover the entire southern maritime border of the EU and the Mediterranean is technically feasible.

• Set up, as early as possible in 2006, regional networks of "immigration" liaison officers by associating priority countries or regions, and submit reports by May 2006, on illegal immigration and trafficking in human beings, with the assistance, if necessary, of the "immigration" liaison officers present in the main countries.

• Present, by spring 2006, a proposal for the creation of rapid reaction teams made up of national experts capable of providing rapid technical and operational assistance in times of large influxes of migrants.

Ten years after ! It would be interesting to see where we are (1). I have the impression that we could take up several of these prescriptions to apply them today...

(NGV)

(1) Only the last seems to me more or less applied (Rabit teams from Frontex, but still in a limited way).

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

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