A common EU border police force that would help curb illegal immigration could become a reality in five years' time, the EU Justice Commissioner, Mr Antonio Vitorino said yesterday.
"It is a gradual process, that will start with the mere co-ordination of efforts that could evolve quickly so that in the medium term, in four to five years, it will be possible to have a European border guard force," he told reporters on the sidelines of a conference on EU enlargement in Sintra, a hillside town 30 km outside Lisbon.
Europe's interior ministers discussed the feasibility of the creation of a common border security force during a meeting held in Rome last Thursday.
Ministers of EU member states and the 13 EU candidate countries agreed at the meeting to set up a task force that would co-ordinate efforts to curb illegal immigration at Europe's busiest air and sea ports.
The establishment of the task force is seen as a first step towards the creation of a common European border force.
Mr Vitorino said any European border force that was eventually created would not replace national police forces already in existence.
"The (European) border police would support and reinforce the national police, especially the ones in more vulnerable areas," he said.
Italy and Spain's long coastlines place them among the main points of entry into Europe for illegal immigrants.
They want other European countries to share the policing in an effort to stop the flood of clandestine immigrants.
Immigration has become a key concern of European states after the stunning electoral successes of anti-immigrant candidates in France and the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, yesterday in Rome Italian officials said they had detained over 300 people seeking to enter the country illegally in boats over the weekend.
The largest single influx was a group of 199 people from Eritrea and Somalia.
Their leaky boat was escorted to safety by an Italian navy ship after being spotted off Italy's southeastern coast.
A woman and two children from the group - which contained 51 women and 29 children in all - were in a weak state and were hospitalised, officials said.
The others were assembled in a local sports centre before being taken to a holding centre.
On Saturday night another 50 illegal immigrants, believed to be Iraqi Kurds, were picked up by police from the southeastern town of Lecce.
That group had arrived in an inflatable boat.
They had broken into smaller groups in order to make their getaway on shore when they were arrested.
They were taken by authorities to a detention centre in Otrante.
And also on Saturday 58 others, including Pakistanis, Sudanese, Iraqis and Tunisians, were arrested by police on the island of Lampedusa, off the coast of Sicily.
They were transferred to a detention centre in Agrigente in southern Sicily.
The arrival of the Somalis and Eritreans caused some surprise yesterday, as those nationalities do not usually figure prominently in the mix of people trying to get into Italy. Both countries are former Italian colonies in the Horn of Africa.
The latest arrivals come as Italy's lower house of parliament is debating anti-immigration legislation which it is expected will make it easier to deport illegal immigrants, and allow access to Italy only to the few immigrants with a job offer.
Italy's long coastline makes the country one of the main points of entry into Europe for illegal immigrants and human traffickers. - (AFP)