The Council adopted aswell an action plan for unaccompanied minors arriving illegally in the European Union. The objective is to set common standards for receiving them, legal guardianship, identifying them, tracking down their families and repatriating them.

The home affairs ministers of the European Union sealed a Pact Against Drug Trafficking, focusing on drug-trafficking routes and the profits generated from this activity, during a Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting held in Luxembourg on Thursday under the Spanish Presidency.

The aim of the European Pact Against Drug Trafficking is to cut off the route by which cocaine, the most widely consumed drug in the EU, reaches the European continent, which in recent years has been through West Africa, and also the route for heroin, which crosses through Turkey or Russia;  part of the strategy is based on strengthening cooperation with third countries.

Other pillars of this new strategy are to encourage collaboration between the various agencies and bodies involved in combating the drug trade, as well as to carry out joint sea-based operations.

Lastly, the fight against drugs will focus on seizing the profits from drug trafficking, and there is even a proposal to use these funds and assets in the battle against the drugs trade.

Meanwhile, the Council adopted an action plan for unaccompanied minors arriving illegally in the European Union. The objective is to set common standards for receiving them, legal guardianship, identifying them, tracking down their families and repatriating them.

The plan establishes that minors will be returned to their families wherever possible, and if their families cannot be found they will be taken to children's institutions in their own countries. It also envisions working with their countries of origin to prevent them from leaving in the first place.

Spain's Minister of the Interior, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, also mentioned the joint EU-US declaration approved in the morning session of the Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA), which reaffirms the desire to fight terrorism on the basis of shared values and principles and tolerance for the values and principles of others.