EU meets on asylum, immigration

At the start of two days of talks in Vienna, the ministers thrashed out a plan for a common asylum system aimed at stopping would-be immigrants from repeatedly applying to stay in Europe.

According to the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), Austria, the current EU president, recognised more than 50 percent of asylum seekers as refugees in 2004 compared to only 0.3 percent in Greece.

"Consistency between member states is essential when asylum seekers are unable to choose the country where they wish to make their claim and where a refusal of asylum in one member state means expulsion from all," ECRE said.

The ministers wrapped up the first phase of their common asylum programme in December by adopting a text aimed at standardising the way refugee status is granted around the 25 member bloc by 2010.

But little has been done concretely to implement it so far, in part because the ministers have to agree unanimously on what action to take.

Indeed the plan has already been criticised by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, also taking part in the talks, as "the lowest common denominator of national policies" and threatening the rights of asylum seekers.

The justice and interior ministers, meeting in the Hofburg imperial palace complex, will also debate how the EU can help stop people trying to flee their homelands or aid those caught in transit en route for Europe.

Almost 30,000 people tried to illegally enter Italy and Spain alone in 2005.

Europe's struggle with the problem was highlighted in September when African immigrants tried to break into the Spanish urban enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the north African coast from Morocco in hope of a better life across the Mediterranean Sea.