Rome: Italy and France have asked the European Union to revise the Schengen border treaty that permits passport-free travel through Europe to take into account "exceptional" situations like the recent massive flood of Tunisian immigrants.
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said they had signed a joint letter to the EU during a summit on Tuesday and had appointed officials to work on the issue.
"We want Schengen to survive, but to survive Schengen must be reformed," Sarkozy told reporters after the meeting. "We believe in free circulation but we believe in a state of law and a certain number of rules."
Berlusconi said no one wanted to cancel the treaty but said "in exceptional circumstances we believe there must be variations."
Italy has been harshly criticised by France for granting temporary residency permits to some 20,000 Tunisian immigrants who have arrived in Italy since the North Africa nation's dictator was overthrown in mid-January.
Most of these Tunisians, it is believed, want eventually to get to France, Tunisia's former colonial ruler, where many of them have relatives.
Sent back
France last week stopped a train carrying Tunisian immigrants from Italy at the French border, sending back those who, they said, could not support themselves financially.
Despite the tensions, Berlusconi and Sarkozy said relations between the countries remained strong.
The atmosphere was greatly improved on Monday after Italy ceded to a Nato request to augment its military activity in Libya: Italian aircraft will now begin strategic airstrikes on selected military targets.
Seemingly in exchange, Sarkozy voiced support for Italian Central Banker Mario Draghi as the new head of the European Central Bank.
He said Draghi was a top candidate and a strong signal "for all those Italians who doubt Italy's role in the EU."
Key topic
In their letter to the EU, the two leaders said the 27-bloc must present a bill to reform the Schengen treaty this year, including bolstering the EU border control agency Frontex.
The treaty must include the "possibility of re-establishing temporary internal border controls in case of exceptional difficulties," it said.
The immigration dispute was a key topic of the summit, but French takeovers of Italian companies were also on the agenda.
French dairy company Lactalis said on Tuesday that it was making a €3.375 billion (Dh18 billion) bid for full control of Italian dairy giant Parmalat.
Berlusconi said he didn't consider the bid hostile, and said creating large Italian-French groups was "the path to follow" to remain competitive globally.
