50% drop in EU irregular migrant border crossings after Italy-Libya pact

Italy's "push-back" pact with Libya to send migrants picked up at sea to detention centres in the north African country instituted last year has produced an extraordinary drop in the number of migrants apprehended irregularly crossing the EU border - whether by land or sea.

Irregular crossings into the EU had been climbing in recent years, with Brussels data from Eurodac, the EU's biometric common asylum registration system released on Tuesday showing a rise of 62.3 percent in the number of cases between 2007 and 2008.

However, the number dropped by a whopping 50 percent in the last year. At the sqm time, the number of asylum seekers in Europe rose by eight percent in 2009

For more: EUobserver / 50% drop in EU irregular migrant border crossings after Italy-Libya pact