EU pledges to better manage migration challenges

The European Union here on Wednesday expressed strong will to better manage migration challenges, as the European Commission launched the work on a comprehensive European Agenda on Migration.

The European Commissioners held a first orientation debate on key actions to step up the EU's efforts to implement the existing tools and cooperation in managing migration flows from third countries.

According to a press release from the Commission, the debate sets out four main areas where actions are envisaged in the European Agenda on Migration, vowing to fight irregular migration and human trafficking more robustly, build strong common asylum system, set up new European policy on legal migration and secure Europe's external borders.

The European Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans said the EU will present a new migration agenda in May with an improved governance to strengthen its asylum system, set a sound course on legal migration, act more vigorously against irregular migration and ensure more secure borders.

"Managing migration well is a challenge for Europe as a whole. It is now time for a fresh approach in the way we work together: we must make better and more coherent use of all our tools, agree common priorities and pool more resources at EU and national levels to achieve real solidarity," he said.

According to the EU, about 20.4 million third-country nationals are living in the bloc in 2013, amounting to 4 percent of the total EU population. The most important groups of third country nationals were Turks, Moroccans, Chinese, Indians and Ukrainians.

Since the early 2000s, the European Commission has been developing and expanding a European legal migration policy that set out the conditions of entry and residence and also minimum of rights that migrants should enjoy to integrate the society. Endit