WRITTEN QUESTION E-0454/02

by Isidoro Sánchez García (ELDR) to the Council

(27 February 2002)

Subject: Immigration action plan for Morocco

It is widely known that, in 1999, the Council devised an action plan for Morocco relating to the emigration of Africans to the EU Member States. The plan took a consistent, comprehensive approach to the issue and proposed a series of measures designed to enable clear-sighted action to be taken in response to the social and economic problems which could stem from such emigration.

What does the Council think of Morocco's implementation of the action plan at a time when significant numbers of immigrants are arriving in the Canary Islands, an outlying part of the European Union which is very close to the African continent?

Reply

(27 June 2002)

Immigration into the European Union via Morocco is a matter of constant concern to the Council, which has, moreover, already on several occasions replied to questions from Members of the European Parliament relating to illegal immigration by sea from the African continent.

In December 1998 the Council set up the High-level Working Group on Asylum and Migration, with the task of drawing up action plans for some countries of origin of asylum-seekers and/or illegal immigrants, taking a global approach. Morocco was amongst the countries chosen for such action plans, and in October 1999 the Council adopted the action plan to which the Honourable Member refers.

The Council, in consultation with the Commission, made considerable efforts to establish a partnership for implementing the action plan, the security aspects of which had given rise to some misgivings on the part of the Moroccan authorities. The partnership is currently taking tangible shape in the framework of the Association Agreement between the Community and Morocco, within which a Working Party on Social Affairs and Migration was set up. That Working Party has identified three priority subjects for cooperation in the field of migration, namely the socio-economic area, legal migration into the Union and the fight against illegal immigration networks, including sub-Saharan transit migration.

At the meeting of the Association Council in October 2001 the Moroccan delegation asked the European Union for help in combating illegal immigration and submitted for its attention a draft of new measures to combat illegal immigration.

The European Union welcomed that request from the Moroccan authorities, and the Commission, while emphasising the global nature of such an exercise, decided to include in the MEDA National Indicative Programme 2001-2002 for Morocco a border control programme for an indicative budget of EUR40 million. The National Indicative Programme was adopted by the MED Committee in December 2001 and endorsed by the Moroccan authorities in January 2002. Consultations on the detailed arrangements for implementing that project are under way in partnership with Morocco. It should be noted, moreover, that under budget heading B7-667: specific measures involving third countries a number of projects selected for 2001 for Morocco concern the management of migratory flows, voluntary return and the fight against illegal immigration.