§ Mr. AitkenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the outcome of the meeting of Trevi and European Community Immigration Ministers in Dublin on 14 and 15 June.
§ Mr. WaddingtonA major theme of Trevi Ministers' discussions was the need to improve further co-operation against drug trafficking. We approved a paper examining the links between drug trafficking and other organised crime, and endorsed new arrangements for a co-ordinated response to requests for technical assistance including training from drug producer and transit countries. At my instigation, Trevi Ministers also agreed to an accelerated timetable for work on the proposal for a European drugs intelligence unit, and to examination of the need for such a unit to have effective links with other European countries including those in eastern Europe.
As Trevi Ministers, we also reviewed progress during the Irish Presidency on measures to develop police co-operation across the whole range of crime in the light of completion of the single European market after 1992. We approved a programme of action setting out a range of measures, a copy of which I am placing in the Library.
The meeting of Ministers concerned with immigration, attended also by a Vice-President of the Commission, was the eighth in the series of such meetings held towards the end of each Presidency since 1986.
Ministers took stock of the work carried out in the ad hoc working group on immigration during the Irish Presidency and considered the future programme of work. The main conclusions which we reached are set out in a press release of which I am placing a copy in the Library.
I was pleased to join 10 of my Community colleagues in signing a convention on asylum which establishes criteria for determining which member state is responsible for examining a claim for asylum when more than one member state is involved. I am placing a copy of the convention in the Library, and it will also be laid before the House in the normal way.