In view of the difficult refugee situation, Germany and France have called on the EU Commission to begin negotiations on an asylum and migration agreement with Great Britain. Brexit has had “very damaging effects on the coherence of our migration policy,” according to a letter from Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) and her French colleague Gérald Darmanin, which was made available to the AFP news agency on Saturday. The EU Commission must therefore “quickly present a draft negotiating mandate” for an agreement with Great Britain.
“The lack of provisions to regulate the movement of people between the United Kingdom and the Schengen area is clearly contributing to the dynamics of irregular migration flows,” stress Faeser and Darmanin in the letter sent to EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson on Friday evening. This endangers people who use the route across the English Channel and the North Sea to reach Great Britain.
The migration routes that cross mainland Europe to Great Britain also account for “almost a third of illegal entries” into the European Schengen area, it continues. “The lack of legal prospects in the United Kingdom encourages people to go into hiding and strengthens the smuggling networks.”
From the perspective of Germany and France, the inauguration of the new British government, which has declared itself willing to cooperate, is an opportune moment “to make concrete progress on this issue,” stressed Faeser and Darmanin. The aim is therefore an agreement that “equally addresses issues of legal mobility, particularly for family and professional reasons, the fight against irregular immigration and the right to asylum.”
In the letter, Germany and France also complain that other EU member states are not complying with the previous European asylum agreements. This concerns the so-called Dublin rules, according to which countries must take back refugees who have travelled on to other EU states if they were already registered with them. Countries such as Italy on the EU’s external border have been refusing to do this for some time, pointing to the high burden they face from newly arriving refugees.
“We regret, however, that the Dublin Regulation has been rarely or not at all observed by some Member States for many months now,” write Faeser and Darmanin. “Dublin transfers must not be suspended unilaterally.” This would undermine the trust that is necessary to implement the EU asylum reform that has now been agreed in the coming years. “Otherwise, any European reform will appear pointless and ineffective from the outset.”
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