Paudge Connolly (Cavan-Monaghan, Independent)

The recent European Council meeting coincided with the end of the Finnish EU Presidency and I am happy to note that it adopted a welcoming attitude to the issue of further EU enlargement and described enlargement as a key priority for an open union like the EU.

I also note that the Commission was asked to assess how possible EU membership to the acceding countries would affect the European Union's functioning. In this regard it intends to keep its commitments to the acceding countries, with particular reference to the western Balkans which have much to contribute within the EU. I am also pleased to note that the application of Croatia has regained momentum after some difficulties in 2005 and this may lead to the sixth enlargement of the Union, along with Turkey, by 2009.

A comprehensive European migration policy, along with concrete action to achieve this, was another issue on which there was agreement at the Council. The flow of international migration affects all member states of the European Union and a co-ordinated approach that takes account of the economic and demographic position of the EU will be instrumental in the better management of migration flows.

Large numbers of both legal and illegal migrants have continued to come to the EU in spite of restrictive immigration policies that have been put in place for decades. Smuggling and trafficking networks have taken hold across the EU with the sole objective of taking advantage of persons looking for a better life. This has resulted in the deployment of considerable resources to fight illegal migration and particularly to target smugglers and traffickers.

Human trafficking is a trade of human misery that affects 15,000 people in the EU annually, and affects approximately eight times that number worldwide. Poverty, corruption and social breakdown are the circumstances in which this odious trade thrives, with the lure of an apparently better life and work opportunities in the EU. Since they may have entered the country illegally, they are afraid, unwilling or unable at times to seek help from the Garda or police. In such situations the need to protect, rather than punish, victims is paramount and all forms of human trafficking such as illegal adoptions and selling human organs must be outlawed.

However, it should be recognised that the EU needs migrants in certain sectors and regions to deal with the economic and demographic needs. This was the pretext for the adoption at the European Council meeting at Tampere in Finland in 1999 of a new approach to EU immigration policy with the setting out of elements for a common EU immigration policy. This was further confirmed with the adoption in 2004 of the Hague programme setting out the objective of strengthening freedom, security and justice in the EU for the period 2005-10. These are the logical steps towards an ultimate new order, with a vast European space of between 25 and 35 countries with joint immigration planning and joint external borders.

Generally, the eastern EU border controls function fairly well, thanks to the different training and EU harmonisation, but the southern sea borders are more in focus at present. Transit movements through Albania to other EU countries in rubber boats have been temporarily brought to a halt, but the transit flows from Lebanon, Morocco and Libya are growing and there is a particular difficulty with these countries at present. Libya has become the people smuggling hub, with over 1.5 million sub-Saharan migrants in the country. Through Morocco and across the Straits of Gibraltar, the boats bring hundreds of thousands over to Spain. They have been brought to the Canary Islands as well and quite a number of lives are lost each year in this trade. In the past ten years the Spanish authorities have counted over 6,000 dead migrant bodies on their shores. This is how many of these are detected.

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