Migration across the English Channel: London pays millions for deportation center

Status: 03/10/2023 6:52 p.m

Great Britain wants to set up a deportation center in France in order to prevent the recent sharp rise in migration across the English Channel. Prime Minister Sunak announced that he would pay Paris half a billion euros for this.

Britain will pay France more than half a billion euros over the next three years to combat unwanted migration across the English Channel. This is to finance a new deportation center in northern France, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced at a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. This more than doubles the annual payments from London to Paris.

A new command center is also to be built with the 541 million euros, and 500 additional border guards as well as modern drones and surveillance technology are to be used. “Criminal gangs shouldn’t decide who comes to our countries,” said Sunak.

Great Britain plans to tighten asylum law

The British government is under pressure from a record number of incoming migrants. Last year alone, around 45,000 people crossed the English Channel from France to England illegally – compared to almost 30,000 in 2021.

Sunak recently announced a new asylum law. It provides for almost all migrants who enter the country without official permission to be detained initially in accommodation such as former military bases or student dormitories. After that they should be expelled to Rwanda or other countries. The right to apply for asylum should be taken away from them. The British government has admitted that the project is pushing the limits of international law. UN organizations have sharply criticized the plans.

Macron is pushing for a European solution

Macron stressed that France cannot negotiate an agreement with Great Britain alone to take back refugees. This is an EU matter. After Brexit, Great Britain can no longer apply the Dublin regulation that applies in the EU, according to which migrants can be sent back to another EU country if they have already stopped there on their flight.

Channeling migration must be tackled by all European countries together, Macron said. This should include transit countries as well as countries from which the smugglers who organized the crossing of migrants in rubber boats across the English Channel operated.

First top meeting in five years

At the meeting, both politicians emphasized their desire for a political restart. “Relationships between our countries have been strained in recent years and I don’t just mean that you threw England out of the World Cup,” said Sunak. The first top meeting in five years is a “new beginning”. “We left the EU, but not Europe,” said Sunak.

Relations between the two countries had suffered during the previous two Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, largely because of a defense pact struck between Britain, the US and Australia that torpedoed a French submarine deal.

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