EU Against the Clock

One of the main topics being discussed by ministers during the two-day meeting is the growing problem of illegal migration from Africa to Europe.

Last year alone, about 30,000 illegal migrants from Africa attempted to reach the shores of the EU's southern member countries Spain, Portugal and Italy. Frontex, the bloc's border security agency which coordinates the national border patrols, was found to be largely inefficient to cope with the influx.

EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini told reporters on the eve of the meeting that he would call on all 27 EU nations to show solidarity and continue to give their backing to Frontex, which became operational in October 2005.

Frattini said patrols had to be organized now to take advantage of the current slowdown in flows due to the winter weather and stormy seas, and before the expected upswing once the weather improves.

"I will appeal to all ministers to provide concrete contributions by April, because otherwise it will be too late to face the year," Frattini said.

Race against time for EU efforts

European interior ministers are expecting a new wave of migrants in the spring when favorable weather conditions provide a window of opportunity to make the hazardous journey to the Canary Islands and across the Mediterranean Sea.

In a bid to combat the expected new influx of illegal migrants, the EU ministers are set to step up their national efforts to stem the flow. They want to provide more helicopters, planes and boats to patrol the shores of the southern member countries. For this to be more successful than previous attempts, new guidelines and cooperation networks need to be agreed upon.

"We have to support one another," said Germany's Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who is hosting the talks. "That means if a member state is faced with a difficult situation, that member state should be able to count on support."

Tackle problem at its source, says Schäuble

But Schäuble added that the German EU presidency saw the fight against poverty in developing countries as the key to success.

"What we have to offer them is increased development aid and better access to our domestic labor markers," Schäuble said. "This applies to highly skilled workers, but not only. If all the skilled workers were to come to us and those with fewer skills were to remain in the developing countries, we'd simply end up with a brain drain debate and wouldn't do ourselves a favor in the long run."

As well as the migrant debate, the interior and justice ministers will discuss security issues. Germany's Schäuble is also leading a drive to improve national police forces' cross-border cooperation with a view to more efficient transnational crime fighting within the EU. He's hoping to convince his counterparts that a central EU data base on crime is urgently needed.

Fighting crime and reforming laws

Meanwhile, German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries, for her part, wants to promote tougher legislation against racially motivated crimes, including the denial of the Holocaust. A German proposal seeks to criminalize all racist declarations that incite violence against a single person or specific group of people.

But the German justice minister also called for harmonization of a wide range of other legal issues. She has picked European inheritance and family laws as ripe for reform.

"Within the European Union, there are some 100,000 cross-border inheritance cases," Zypries said. In addition, there are about one million divorces in the EU each year, and 20 percent of them involve people from two different European nations. So, there's a dire need to have clearer legislation as to how to deal with such transnational cases in the bloc."

The Dresden meeting of EU interior and justice ministers is an informal one, so no immediate policy changes are expected. It is hoped though that many of the proposals made in Dresden will be turned into law later this year.