Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-14-Speech-3-277"
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"en.20010214.8.3-277"2
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"The honourable Member’s question applies to the Council’s initiatives for Member State control of external sea borders and to the measures which can be taken in the country of origin to prevent illegal immigration and to stop trafficking operations.
Measures to improve the effectiveness of Member States’ control of airspace and external sea borders have mostly been drawn up within the framework of the Schengen cooperation and, now that the Treaty of Amsterdam has come into force, have now been incorporated into EU legislation. These measures are carried out by the Member States themselves, but the Council monitors actual implementation through its relevant subordinate bodies.
Practical measures are carried out in cooperation with selected African states, for example, to prevent illegal immigration, by air or by sea, based on the decision of Schengen’s Executive Committee of 18 December 1998 on a coordinated initiative from the document advisers. In a decision on 28 April 1999, the same executive committee also approved a plan for mutual placement of liaison officers to offer advice and support when security and control assignments are carried out along external borders.
In addition to issues concerning the Schengen acquis, illegal immigration to the EU constitutes one of the major issues being dealt with by the Council, based on conclusions from several meetings of the European Council – Tampere, Feira and Nice to name but a few. As the honourable Member no doubt knows, the European Council obliged the EU to intensify cooperation to combat trafficking in human beings following the tragic events in Dover last year.
After the conclusions from the European Council meetings, which emphasised the importance of controlling migration flows, the Council has discussed both operational measures and regulations for combating trafficking in human beings. In this regard, the Council adopted resolutions on 30 November last year which contained various operational measures to combat illegal immigration, such as the exchange of information on observed migration flows, the optimisation of the early warning system, the transfer of information on illegal immigration and trafficking in human beings and the coordination of the network for Member State liaison officers in the countries in which the illegal immigration originates.
With regard to the basic causes of flight or migration from a number of African countries, we refer you to the action plan for Morocco which was approved by the Council on 11 October 1999 and of which Parliament is hopefully aware.
Within the framework of implementing the action plan for Morocco, and as the EU is aware that the action plan must be implemented through partnership and cooperation with the Moroccan authorities, a delegation from the EU under the leadership of the presidency made a second visit to Rabat to open a dialogue with the Moroccan authorities. The message which the presidency wished to get across during this visit, which took place on 3 October last year, was that the action plan for Morocco was the result of work originally started by the Member States and the Commission and that it was now time to ask for the reactions of the Moroccan parties and to make the necessary adjustments of the action plan so that it could be implemented jointly.
I believe that the Moroccan authorities welcomed this course of action and the idea of opening a dialogue with the EU on immigration issues. This dialogue will take place within the framework of the association agreement with Morocco once agreement has been reached on setting up a working party on social and migration issues. The Council’s subordinate bodies are currently looking at a proposal from the Commission on this matter."@en1
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