Spain and Morocco yes-terday called for a conference of European and African ministers to address a resurgent conflict between the two continents over illegal immigration.
In a joint statement, Miguel Angel Moratinos, the Spanish foreign minister, and Mohamed Benaissa, his Moroccan counterpart, said the meeting should involve countries of "origin, transit and destination" and help "establish agreed mechanisms for the management of migratory flows".
The Spanish minister visited Morocco to head off a crisis over the latest surge of west Africans trying to force their way into Melilla and Ceuta, Spain's north African enclaves.
About a dozen people were killed and hundreds injured during violent clashes with authorities last week. Several hundred made it on to Spanish territory, where they plan to seek refugee status, but more than 1,000 were flown back to Senegal and Mali. About 1,000 more were bussed, handcuffed, to Morocco's south-western limits and abandoned in the desert, according to aid organisations.
By late yesterday, however, many of them had been rounded up by Moroccan authorities and were being held in temporary shelters.
Spain has asked Brussels for €40m ($48m, £28m) to help Morocco control its borders and combat human trafficking. Madrid is also expected to press today at a meeting of EU justice and interior ministers for greater EU co-operation on immigration. Mr Moratinos insists it is "an important and urgent priority not only for Spain but for the entire EU to design a very ambitious policy for co-operation in tackling immigration".
But the cautious response by Brussels and other EU nations to the Moroccan refugee crisis highlights the limits of EU co-operation in immigration and asylum policy. EU ministers, who have been debating asylum standards for almost a decade, last year made a general commitment to establish a common policy by 2010.
The dramatic refugee situation also shows the shortcomings of the EU's neighbourhood policy, even though Brussels considers Morocco one of the success stories in its 10 year-programme to deepen ties with countries on the southern shores of the Mediterranean.
Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister and member of the European parliament, said: "Europe needs to make claims on these countries and condition its support as far as the modernisation process, human rights and democracy are concerned."
Apart from drawing fire from aid agencies, the latest episode has revived debate about Spain's role as a transit point for African migrants. Domestic and European critics of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, prime minister, say a virtual amnesty for many of the estimated 1.5m illegal workers in Spain encouraged a flood of sub-Saharan Africans to try their luck.
In a weekend German newspaper interview, Otto Schily, the German interior minister, criticised Spain's unilateral decision to grant such an amnesty. He said: "Wide-ranging campaigns to legalise immigrants such as in Spain mean more illegal immigrants are drawn to Europe . . . In the long term immigration and refugee problems cannot be solved with unilateral action."
Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister, said his country's experience with such an amnesty policy had yielded "very mixed results".
Every summer, scores of Africans die trying to cross the Straits of Gilbraltar in makeshift craft, while thousands more are turned away at Spain's borders, which has strained the already difficult relations between Spain and Morocco, two countries that have a history of territorial disputes. Moroccan criminal groups also use Spain in the trafficking of drugs and people. However, the socialist government seems determined to mend the relationship. Mr Zapatero made Rabat his first foreign trip after taking office in April last year.
