The European Commission wants to establish partnerships and bilateral agreements with non-Member States, including those in North Africa, to combat migrant smuggling networks and will make the fight against trafficking a key element of the future Pact on Asylum and Migration.
Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said this on Monday 13 July at the end of an international meeting hosted by Italy and involving the interior ministers of Germany, Malta, Spain and France and their counterparts from Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania and Libya.
The theme of the meeting was the fight against smuggling networks, which between 2017 and 2019 generated “more than 330 million euros of profit on the routes of the central and western Mediterranean”, the European official said.
“Thousands of lives were also lost” on these roads while the traffickers were “making money”. But it is “not just the sea that is a danger”, the Commissioner said, citing all other forms of “sexual or labour” exploitation.
In 2019, “60% of people were prevented from falling into these networks”, the official said, citing figures from Morocco, which prevented 70,000 people from leaving. The Libyan coastguard, whose cooperation with the EU is controversial, has also played its part in identifying networks, while Algeria, for its part, has dismantled “100 criminal networks”.
The Commissioner called for coordinated action and enhanced investigative capacity. She referred to the role of agencies such as Frontex or Europol, which should be used more to combat networks, and called for continued EU support, for example through the EU Trust Fund for Africa.
Legal migration to the EU, the Commissioner said, is also a solution for reducing networks.
In an April version of the future Pact on Migration and Asylum, expected after the summer, the Commission referred to a forthcoming new Action Plan against networks; it did not commit itself to new legislative action, but possibly to guidelines or the strengthening of sanctions against employers of illegal immigrants.
And for international cooperation, the aim was to develop “tailor-made partnerships between the EU, Member States and EU agencies with key third countries”, for example, through joint investigation teams and information campaigns on the risks of illegal immigration.
On Monday, Ylva Johansson did not detail those partnerships on which reflection will only begin, she said. But these partnerships, as envisaged in this April draft, follow the EU recipe already proposed in the past: partnerships that can bring mutual benefits in migration and mobility, but also in areas such as education and skills.
Link to the Pact on Migration and Asylum: https://bit.ly/304HrzU.
Franco-British Intelligence Unit
The new French Home Secretary, Gérald Darmanin, and the British Home Secretary, Priti Patel, also announced on 12 July in Calais the creation of an intelligence unit on smuggling networks, made up of six British and six French police officers. On 11 July, around 20 migrants trying to reach England were rescued in the Channel. Agreements exist between Paris and London, with Paris having to prevent departures from Calais organised in exchange for the payment of a sum of money. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)