EU urged to revamp asylum rules

Italy, Spain, France, Cyprus, Malta and Greece will present joint proposals at a meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels on Thursday. The six countries want a common EU asylum system to be in place in 2012.

Italy has warned that the chaos in Libya could trigger a "Biblical" exodus of up to 300,000 migrants.

At least one million migrants, many of them from sub-Saharan Africa, are believed to be in Libya, hoping to reach Europe. Many of them may be political refugees, not simply economic migrants, so Europe has an obligation under human rights agreements to identify genuine refugees who have a right to asylum.

The six Mediterranean countries whose ministers met in Rome on Wednesday demanded a programme for relocation - that is, spreading asylum seekers around Europe if they arrive in large numbers.

They want a special solidarity fund to be set up to help them process arriving migrants.

In a recent ruling, the European Court of Human Rights challenged the EU's Dublin II Regulation, under which asylum seekers are sent back to their point of entry into the EU.

The regulation is intended to prevent "asylum shopping" in Europe, but it has exacerbated the dilemma of Greece, which is struggling to cope with thousands of asylum applications.

Last week more than 5,000 illegal migrants from Tunisia arrived at Italy's Lampedusa island, in the wake of Tunisia's revolution. In recent years Malta and Spain have also intercepted numerous boatloads of migrants from Africa. Often the boats are rickety and migrants risk their lives in their desperation to reach Europe.

The EU border agency Frontex is providing Italy with logistical support.

As the uprising in Libya intensified the government of Col Muammar Gaddafi warned the EU that it would stop co-operating on illegal migration from North Africa if the EU backed those seeking to topple him from power.

In recent years, Italy and Libya have co-operated to intercept boatloads of illegal migrants in the Mediterranean. The number of such boats fell sharply after the systematic interceptions began.