Four days after the deadly shipwreck in the English Channel, participants in an emergency European meeting in Calais agreed to “improve joint cooperation with the United Kingdom” in the face of migratory trafficking, despite the absence of the British, against a backdrop of persistent tensions between London and Paris.
The meeting took place in reaction to the worst migratory drama in the sea separating France from the United Kingdom, which claimed the lives of at least 27 shipwrecked migrants on Wednesday.
“These deaths are too numerous” and “we cannot accept that other people die”, declared in opening the French Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin.
The ministers or officials responsible for French, German, Dutch and Belgian immigration, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs and the directors of the European criminal police agencies Europol and Frontex borders gathered.
On board fragile boats, migrants now try almost daily to reach the English coast, a phenomenon which, according to Mr. Darmanin, has taken on an unprecedented scale since Brexit.
He announced that the European border agency Frontex was going to deploy a plane on Wednesday to “day and night, to be able to help the French, Dutch and Belgian police” who monitor the coast.
In a joint declaration, the participants “reaffirmed their commitment to do everything possible to fight more effectively against criminal networks of smugglers” and recognized the need “to improve joint cooperation with the United Kingdom”.
Reduce British “attractiveness”
Mr. Darmanin himself reaffirmed France’s desire to “work” with “her British friends and allies”.
But he asked them to do more, especially in terms of police cooperation, to reduce the “attractiveness” of the English labor market or to open legal channels for refugees.
Mr. Darmanin had disinvited his counterpart Priti Patel on Friday, in response to a letter posted on Twitter by Boris Johnson asking Paris to take back migrants arriving from France in Britain.
Greatly absent in Calais, Mme Patel announced on Twitter Sunday “urgent talks with (his) European counterparts” next week, “to avoid further tragedies”. She spoke to Ankie Broekers-Knols, the Dutch Secretary of State for Justice and Security, on Sunday.
Mme Patel said during this conversation that she would make an effort to cooperate with the EU, reported Mr.me Broekers-Knols to AFP. “I reported it to the Calais meeting,” she added.
“The death of these 27 people must be a clear call to cooperate,” Mr.me Patel in The Sun.
“The relationship with the UK is not easy, but [elle est] necessary, our geography pushes us to work together ”, admitted Mr. Darmanin, who again challenged“ British declarations and public acts ”complicating the collaboration.
He referred to a meeting on Monday on the issue around Emmanuel Macron.
“Prevent chaos”
In Calais, a senior official from the German Interior Ministry, for his part, deemed “urgent” that “a post-Dublin agreement between the European Union and Great Britain” be concluded.
Stephan Mayer, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior, referred to the so-called “Dublin” European regulation, which gives the first country of entry of a migrant into the EU the responsibility of processing his application for asylum, but which ceased to apply in the United Kingdom since 1er January.
It is “important to work, of course, closely with the UK. We must prevent the loss of life, ”concluded EU Home Affairs Commissioner Yvla Johansson, adding:“ We must prevent chaos from coming to our external borders ”.
Held at a distance by the police, around forty demonstrators chanted “Darmanin assassin, you have blood on your hands” when the ministers arrived. “This border has been killing for too long,” proclaimed a banner.
The investigation into the shipwreck is being carried out at the National Jurisdiction in charge of the fight against organized crime, in Paris. But nothing has yet filtered, neither on the nationality of the victims, nor on the causes of the tragedy.
A young Iraqi Kurd was killed in the shipwreck, according to her family’s testimony to AFP in Soran, Iraq. Only an Iraqi and a Somali were saved.