The budget for the European Union's border control agency, Frontex, is to be doubled in 2008, officials in Brussels said Thursday as scores of immigrants landed in southern Italy, according to dpa. A spokesman for Franco Frattini, the EU commissioner in charge of justice, freedom and security, said the Frontex budget was set to increase to "about 72 million euros" next year. Officials from the Warsaw-based agency have long complained that their current budget of 35 million euros (50 million dollars) is insufficient to finance its operations. Frontex coordinates joint border security operations by member states and has implemented a number of missions, most notably in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, off Spain's Canary Islands. On Wednesday, the European Parliament's Budgets Committee voted in favour of the budget increase for Frontex missions. The vote follows a recent visit by committee members to Malta, one of the EU members most affected by illegal immigration. "We want to ensure that joint maritime border patrols can become structural and permanent as from January 2008," Frattini's spokesman told reporters in Brussels. Some 215 would-be immigrants landed Thursday morning on Lampedusa, bringing to almost 600 the number of people to have reached the tiny southern Italian island over the past 24 hours. Thursday's group - including 12 women and a newborn baby - reached the island on a 15-metre long boat, Italian immigration officials said. The immigrants are believed to be Egyptians, Tunisians, Moroccans Ghanaians and Iranians. Most immigrants arriving in Lampedusa do so after departing from ports in Libya and crossing the Mediterranean. EU officials say a deal with the North African state is essential to stem the tide. In an interview published by an Italian paper on Thursday, Frattini said a recent accord with Tripoli would soon produce results. "Twenty days ago I clinched a deal with Libya. The EU will help the Libyans to maintain surveillance over 1,500 kilometres of its border with Niger from where many immigrants filter through," Frattini was quoted as saying. "In exchange, the Libyans will block the sea voyages towards Italy. Libyan officers will also be on board our patrol boats," he said. Tens of thousands of immigrants enter the EU illegally each year.
