Europe agrees to support common immigration pact

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(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-07-08 23:48

PARIS -- The 27 member states of the European Union (EU) have unanimously agreed to back the continent-wide pact on immigration and asylum drawn up by France after difficult and careful negotiations, French authorities have announced.

The project, one of France's priorities during its six-month EU presidency, was negotiated at length and has undergone "improvements and enhancements," French Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux, who is also the chief architect behind the pact, told reporters Monday.

The French minister, who is also in charge of important dockets such as integration, national identity and co-development, was speaking shortly after the end of an informal meeting with his counterparts in Cannes, southern France.

The negotiations were tough, particularly with Spain, but a compromise was reached and a political agreement was sealed off during the last bilateral working meeting in Madrid on Thursday and Friday, three days before the Cannes meeting.

During the highly-charged bilateral negotiations, Spain had insisted on leaving its stamp on the agreement. "It is important that the draft agreement incorporates the elements of the model that we have put forward," said Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba on arrival for the mini-summit.

"The ministers gave a unanimous agreement on the principles, objectives, format and structure of the draft convention," said Hortefeux, who was addressing the final press conference franked by his German, Spanish, Czech and Swedish counterparts.

"This agreement allows the prospect of a signature in mid-October" during the EU summit scheduled for Brussels, he said. The draft will still have to be finalized and the European Commission wants to enrich it further, EU Commissioner for Justice Jacques Barrot told the press briefing.

The agreement is intended to harden the European policy on immigration, while at the same time putting in place rules to govern the 27 EU member states in dealing with asylum seekers.

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