Ministers eens over vijfjarenplan voor Europees asiel- en immigratiebeleid (en)

EU ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Monday (25 October) broadly agreed to a wide-ranging five-year programme of immigration and asylum measures, but failed to settle all disputes.

The issues will now be moved on to the table of EU heads of states, who will meet for a summit in Brussels on 5 November to sign the proposals included in the so-called "the Hague Programme".

The Hague Programme is a five-year plan in continuation of the earlier plan adopted at the Tampere European Council in 1999.

The plan aims to have in place a common EU asylum system in 2010, but the ministers on Monday failed to agree that asylum and immigration decisions should be taken by qualified majority voting and in co-decision with the European Parliament as of 1 April 2005.

The UK, Denmark and Ireland have a "legal exemption" in the EU treaties regarding this area of judicial co-operation.

"With the Treaty of Amsterdam seven years ago, we secured the absolute right to opt- in to any of the asylum and immigration provisions that we wanted in Europe", UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was quoted as saying by British media.

"Unless we opt-in we are not affected by it", he said.

The Hague Programme foresees the establishment of a common European office for asylum and joint processing of asylum applications inside and outside the EU, something that the Commission was asked by ministers to study further.

By 1 May 2005 a common frontier agency will be set up and a rapid reaction force of national experts tasked to manage control of external borders.

The eventual creation of a European corps of border guards will however also be subject for further discussion at the EU's November Summit.