(MADRID) - France and Spain will approve the text for a immigration proposal at a mini-summit between the two nations on Friday in the northern Spanish city of Zaragoza, a Spanish government official said Monday.

The text will serve as the basis to develop a European consensus on immigration before a European Union summit in October, Spain's secretary of state for the EU, Diego Lopez Garrido, told a news conference.

"After the development of a common European immigration policy in 2005, what was lacking was a political text that regulates in a general way and consolidates this immigration policy," he said.

Last month Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said the text would cover steps to control influxes of migrants as well as policies aimed at eliminating the causes of clandestine immigration.

France intends to make immigration a central theme of its term at the helm of the rotating presidency of the EU during the second half of the year.

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