EU to speed up deportations to tackle migrant crisis

Luxembourg (AFP) - European Union nations agreed on Thursday to speed up the deportation of failed asylum seekers as they took a harder line toward tackling the worst migration crisis since World War II.

Interior ministers from the 28-nation bloc endorsed a dedicated programme to send back those they described as economic migrants -- who are largely from poor African nations -- and not refugees from conflict-torn Middle East countries.

After months of tensions over the wave of nearly 600,000 people who have flooded into Europe this year, the EU is now taking a tougher stance by focusing on tightening border controls and reducing the incentive for people to come to the continent in the first place.

"Those who do not require international protection must return to their countries of origin," Luxembourg minister Jean Asselborn, whose country holds the EU presidency, told reporters after the talks.

Only around 40 percent of people ordered to leave after their asylum applications failed currently actually leave or are deported from Europe, he said.

"We need to crack down on people abusing our asylum system," British Home Secretary Theresa May said as she arrived at the talks.

Ten return flights from Europe will now take place this month, Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said, in what his staff said already marks an increase as Europe gets tougher.

- EU border force -

The ministers suggested they would use European development funds as leverage to ensure that countries of origin -- mainly those in Africa -- will take back economic migrants after they are deported.

"A fine balance of incentives and pressure should be used to enhance the cooperation of third countries on readmission and return," the conclusions of the talks said.

The migration crisis is causing political problems in many EU countries where anti-immigration and eurosceptic parties are on the rise amid economic difficulties, as well as divisions between EU nations.

But it is also raising fears that if Europe cannot protect its external borders then its cherished passport-free Schengen zone may crumble, as member states restore controls at the old internal borders to stop migrants.

A plan for a pan-EU border guard corps with a special emphasis on helping overstretched frontline states like Greece and Italy was formally proposed by France at the talks, sources said.

The idea will now be discussed by EU leaders at a summit next week but analysts suspect some frontline states will object on the grounds of sovereignty and the right to guard their own external borders.

In a sign that some had reservations, commissioner Avramopoulos told Thursday's press conference that "almost everybody" agreed on the need on for "shared responsibility" for securing the external borders.

- Hotspots -

Key to efforts to deport migrants and admit genuine refugees is a proposal by the European Commission, the executive of the 28-nation EU, to set up "hotspots," or reception centres in Greece and Italy where officials separate the two categories.

However Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said the "hotspots" are far from ready, after he visited one such site in Greece.

"In terms of timing and organisation, nothing has been thought through," he said.

Avramopoulos and Asselborn will travel to the Italian island of Lampedusa on Friday to mark the opening of the first of the handful of hotspots planned for Greece and Italy.

They will also be on hand on Friday when the first refugees are moved from country to country under a new relocation scheme for 160,000 people, which EU ministers forced through last month in the face of Eastern European opposition.

The first batch consists of around 20 Eritreans who are due to be relocated to Sweden from Italy on Friday.

The interior ministers will later Thursday join EU foreign ministers as well as their counterparts from the neighbouring Balkan countries of Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo, together with officials from Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, which host the majority of Syrian and Iraqi refugees.

The aim is to tackle the flow of migrants who leave Turkey, land in Greece and then make their way through the Balkans to Hungary, Austria and Germany.

The Luxembourg meeting comes a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande both called for an overhaul of the EU's asylum system.

Serbia's president on Thursday meanwhile urged the European Union to keep its borders open as he began a visit to EU member Slovenia.

"The worst would be if the EU, Germany, Austria and Slovenia closed (their borders to migrants) now," Tomislav Nikolic said, warning that if the bloc did stop people from entering, "Serbia... would find itself overflown".