Italy, Spain To Work For Single EU Stance On Immigration

[Strengthandhonour]

Italy, Spain To Work For Single EU Stance On Immigration

MADRID (AP)--The prime ministers of Spain and Italy said Monday they would work together to achieve a common European Union policy on immigration.
Illegal immigration is key issue for both Spain and Italy as they are bearing the brunt of arrivals of small crowded boats from Africa.
"It's a problem for our continent," Italian Premier Romano Prodi told journalists at a news conference after talks with Spain's Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. "We can't resolve this problem country by country."
More than 27,000 people have been caught so far this year trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands, and 12,000 have been intercepted in waters near Sicily.
The issue is on the agenda for an E.U. leaders summit October 20 in the Finnish city of Lahti.
"We have to work together to achieve a regulated flow of immigration and against illegal immigration," Prodi added.
Zapatero said both countries would push for a common E.U. stance at this week's informal summit in Lahti.
"We coincide totally in that immigration is a European matter. The perfect proof is that Spain and Italy are going through similar experiences," Zapatero said.
"Italy and Spain are going to speed up and intensify the effort to ensure that immigration is a European issue because it deals with economic and development relations of two continents, Europe and Africa."
Zapatero said they would push for the E.U. to take a united role on three fronts: cooperation and investment in Africa; border controls and more financing for immigration issues and projects.
Spain, Italy and six other E.U. members along the Mediterranean basis recently sent a letter to the European Union urging it to adopt a common immigration policy and do more to stem the tide of destitute Africans trying to gain a foothold in Europe.
The visit by Prodi is his first here since taking office in Italy in May.
He and Zapatero also discussed the expanded U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, to which their countries are among the largest contributors of troops, along with France.
source: http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/Ne...LINE000611.htm&

[Menydh]

The floods of immigrants arriving by boats to the Southern coasts of the Peninsula and the Canary Islands is a problem which Spanish Socialist President Zapatero has created all alone by regularising the situation of illegal immigrants after he won the elections, and creating the so-called "call effect".

He was warned then and now he doesn't know how to stop it and he cannot stop it. That is why he is begging for help while presenting to the Spanish public opinion any miserable talks as a "step forward" and a "success" of his government against illegal immigration. It is pathetic beyond words.

What the hell are our troops doing in Lebanon or Afghanistan when he admits that there are no effectives to fight illegal immigration at home? Shouldn't they be patrolling the territorial waters of Spain instead?