On Monday 1 March, the President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, appealed in the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs to all the Member States to help them deal with the migration situation in these islands.
The Western Mediterranean migratory route is the only one to have experienced a strong increase in 2020. 23,023 migrants and asylum seekers landed irregularly on the archipelago last year, compared to 2,687 in 2019. Nearly 3,000 people have done so since the beginning of 2021. Migration to the Canary Islands was therefore ten times higher than in previous years.
Mr Torres called for “mechanisms for redistribution of migrants between EU countries” and for more financial support to ensure that these people are taken care of. He particularly called for help on the issue of unaccompanied minors, whose numbers in the Canary Islands represent a quarter of all unaccompanied minors present in Spain.
“We no longer have a budget” to manage these crowds, he said. According to him, “the Canary Islands, with 2 million inhabitants, cannot cope alone with these massive influxes”. And the president of the Canary Islands government reinforced his request: “Binding solidarity is needed. We want quotas, percentages [for relocation, ed.] and not solidarity à la carte”.
In the Pact on Asylum and Migration, the Commission proposes a partnership system for returns that allows people not to choose to relocate asylum seekers. “It is right that all the member countries should participate in a compulsory common policy”, Torres insisted.
Taking part in the hearing, the competent European Commissioner, Ylva Johansson, described the support that the Commission has given to the Canary Islands since the end of 2020. In particular, €43 million was allocated in December to create 7,000 additional emergency accommodation places.
This route has become the most used in 2020 and also the most “deadly”, Johansson noted. 500 people are believed to have lost their lives on it in November 2020 alone.
Although the Commissioner mentioned the various action plans to combat smugglers, particularly with Morocco and Mauritania, some elected representatives doubted the quality of cooperation, for example between Spain and Morocco.
Other elected representatives, such as Pietro Bartolo (S&D, Italy), argued for the compulsory relocation of migrants between Member States, while for Spain’s Sira Rego (The Left), the resurgence of flows observed on this migration route is attributable to the activities of the Frontex agency, which diverts migrants from traditional routes.
“Legal migration channels” to the EU must be opened up with these countries to prevent these people from taking a dangerous route, the commissioner said. It is “clear that we need compulsory solidarity, it is not enough”, at the moment, she concluded. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)