LAHTI, Finland: Spain’s prime minister yesterday urged fellow EU leaders to send more boats, planes, patrols and money to help Italy and Spain tackle the growing problem of illegal immigration from Africa.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero said the massive influx of African migrants illegally landing in Spain’s Canary Islands off Africa’s west coast has drained his government’s resources.

But his appeal for solidarity and concrete help won only lukewarm support from EU leaders meeting at a one-day summit yesterday, where the focus was on energy and the bloc’s relations with Russia.

Still, Zapatero was optimistic that EU nations would come through with help. “Several countries, in private, said they would make available more resources,” he told reporters.

The weak response reflected continued friction over Madrid’s decision last year to grant amnesty to more than 600,000 illegal migrants from Africa without informing its EU partners – a move some believe made Europe even more of a magnet for illegal migrants from Africa.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said separately that EU leaders would return to the issue at a December summit. Spain, Italy and Malta bear the brunt of illegal migration from the Mediterranean, as thousands from impoverished sub-Saharan Africa make the dangerous trek to the African coast and get on rickety boats in a bid to make it across the waters to European shores. Thousands have died along the way.

So far this year, a record 27,000 people have been intercepted trying to reach Spain’s Canary Islands, and 12,000 have been caught in waters near Sicily off Italy’s southern tip.

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said all 25 EU nations should decide to spend at least 0.7 per cent of their gross national product on development aid – a benchmark advised by the UN – to help address the problem of poverty in Africa.

Europe “must have the ambition to resolve the problem (of illegal immigration) together,” he told reporters.

Zapatero proposed new plans for how the EU handles illegal migrants on the high seas. He said illegal immigrants should not be taken to the nearest European port – but be transported immediately back to the country they arrived from.

He also recommended that the EU set up joint offices to process asylum seekers in their countries of origin or the transit countries they passed through to get to Europe.

Zapatero also called for stepped-up joint patrols to intercept boatloads of migrants.

EU governments have already pledged to speed up plans to create permanent “rapid border intervention teams” with boats, planes and experts and a Mediterranean coastal patrol network, but so far have failed to deliver on promises of aid. They have also agreed in principle to beef up the EU’s new external borders agency, Frontex, which is running joint patrols off Africa’s Atlantic coast and in the central Mediterranean.

Only a few EU states have helped Spain patrol African waters: in August, Finland and Italy each sent one plane, while Portugal and Italy have sent boats.

The human rights group Amnesty International warned EU leaders ahead of yesterday’s summit, which was also attended by Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, that cooperating with countries with questionable rights records would put migrants at risk of serious abuse. The group singled out Libya. Italy has been eager to involve Libya in the effort to stop migrants and wants the Northern African nation to accept rejected asylum seekers. But Amnesty noted that Libya’s government had not signed a key international convention meant to protect refugees.