EU leaders, who met in Finland's Lahti on Friday, stressed that the expansion of the Schengen border-free zone must also include the establishing of a uniform approach to migration policies, Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa said at the sidelines of the summit.
"If the negative migration wave became stronger, the question would emerge as to whether Schengen presents an additional protection element or an obstacle. The two processes go hand in hand," Jansa stressed, noting that "it should also be in the interest of Slovenia to join a zone that renders more as opposed to less security".
Saying that Slovenia is "by far the best prepared candidate" to enter the Schengen zone, Jansa went out to point out that there is a strong political will as far as the zone's expansion is concerned, but there are also calls for a uniform policy on migration.
The prime minister explained that the two issues are above all connected in light of the fact that some EU member states are introducing stricter rules for illegal immigrants. Translated into the context of the Schengen zone this leads to waves of illegal immigrants splashing into states with more liberal regimes, Jansa said.
"Given that Slovenia is about to enter the zone, we are also interested in a harmonisation of these policies," he stressed.
Illegal migration from Africa is a problem concerning the whole of Europe, it is a global problem that Europe is to tackle successfully, EU leaders agreed. They argued that the way to go about this is by assisting Africa in eradicating the basic reasons for migrations and improving the control of the bloc's external borders.
While Spain, Italy and Malta, the countries hit hardest by the migration wave, highlighted the problem, other countries promised to back Frontex, the European agency managing EU's external borders, which is entirely dependent on member states' contributions.
Jansa said that meeting also yielded concrete proposals for establishing a joint coast guard of all members states or at least of the Mediterranean members.
The strengthening of a uniform EU policy on migration is to be either the issue of a special EU summit, as proposed by some heads of state and government, or a topic of the next session of the European Council, Jansa concluded.
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