European Union states acknowledged on Thursday they must work more closely to deal with immigration, including by boosting coordination of national border guards and asylum policy, according to Reuters. A wave of illegal migrants arriving on the southern shores in the European Union in rickety boats has exposed the diverging immigration policies of the bloc's 25 states and triggered rows between national capitals over how to deal with the problem. EU interior ministers meeting in Luxembourg recognised the need for an "adequate European response" to what they called the growing humanitarian crisis caused by immigrants arriving in the Spanish Canary Islands, Malta, Italy and the Greek islands. "This response must be ... based on the principles of tangible European solidarity with equitable sharing of responsibilities," ministers said in a statement. They called on the European Commission to study beefing up funding and staffing of Frontex, the EU's external borders agency that has been coordinating EU patrols in the Canaries. Ministers also agreed to set up a mechanism to exchange information on national decisions regarding immigration and asylum policy. That move came after Spain attracted widespread criticism, particularly from northern countries, for legalising hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants in a bid to regulate the flow. Critics said the move only encouraged others to come. In return, the southern countries have said their northern neighbours have been slow to help them deal with a problem that ultimately affects the bloc as a whole. More than 23,000 Africans have arrived in the Canary Islands this year, about five times the number in the whole of 2005. Thousands are believed to have died on the journey. A further 20 would-be immigrants drowned on Thursday off the Canary Islands on a ramshackle boat, according to local media.
