always more agreements and means

For thirty years, France and the United Kingdom have alternately agreed and clung to the delicate issue of migration and asylum. The explosion of passages in “small boats” this summer (17,085 successful passages in 2021 compared to 8,417 in 2020 according to the British authorities) once again arouses the anger of the Boris Johnson government and its conservative majority.

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, visiting Loon-Plage on Saturday, asked for money (read elsewhere) and a new treaty with the neighbor. Bilateral? European? He mentioned the upcoming French presidency of the European Union on January 1 to present a text, but the new Pact on migration and asylum, presented by the Commission on September 23, 2020 to replace the Dublin III regulation, is not yet finalized. In June, the creation of an EU Agency for Asylum and the intentions regarding filtering outside European borders, a fairer distribution between countries and a crisis management framework have just been announced. Nothing about North Sea migrants since Brexit…

Regulations and Treaties

Until now, most of the norms and treaties that regulate the migration issue have been signed directly between France and the United Kingdom. In 1991, the Sangatte Protocol introduced border controls on both sides of the tunnel. It was extended in 2000 to the management of asylum seekers, then in 2007 to checks at stations.

The best known are the Le Touquet Agreements, signed on February 4, 2003. These implement border controls at ports located in the territory of the other party (there are French police in Dover and Folkestone and vice versa, British in Calais and Loon-Plage). Article 7, subject to many interpretations, ensures that ” the authorities of the State of departure cannot refuse to return to its territory » « of persons who are denied the right of entry into the State of arrival ».

But at the time, migrants were not crossing the Strait of Pas-de-Calais in flimsy boats but in trucks via ferries and the tunnel. His return did not collide with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, where the duty of assistance and protection prevails, even in case of violation of immigration laws.

The eminently political issue picks up on January 18, 2018 with the Treaty of Sandhurst. This established adequate police presence and the reinforcement of cooperation in the fight against smuggler networks, the acceleration of the study of asylum applications, the British support, in particular, to the Centers for the Evaluation of the Situation and the Reception (CAES). Since then, action plans have been periodically signed between the two countries (area chief of staff, joint cell, reinforcement of patrols, etc.).

Even if no sum is reported in these various texts, the landscape, in particular Calais, has regularly evolved in accordance with British investments (anti-intrusion walls around the harbors and the tunnel, hundreds of cameras, equipment for security forces order…) . Since 2015, we can establish around 217 million euros the British effort. Not to mention the 63 million euros that the London government owes for 2021…

The money promised by the British is expected “in the coming weeks”

The issue had, to say the least, reignited tensions on both sides of the Channel. During a trip to Loon-Plage on Saturday, Gérald Darmanin called on the British government to fulfill its commitment to pay France the sum of 62.7 million euros in 2021-2022 to finance the reinforcement of French law enforcement on the coasts . ” We call on the British to keep their promise of funding, as we are protecting their border. “Gérald Darmanin had declared.

Administrative delay and no political choice

In the end, the British government said on Monday that it would pay France.” In the next weeks » the money promised to fight against the smuggling of immigrants from the French coast.

An announcement made on the airwaves of the BBC by the British Secretary of State for Home Affairs, Damian Hinds. He said it was a ” administrative process “preferable to” political problem that he had delayed the payment of this money to France.

Regina Anderson

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