Enhanced cooperation with Belgium, France, Germany, and The Netherlands announced
Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, yesterday delivered two updates to Parliament on agreements with other European countries aimed at tackling irregular migration and small boats crossing the Channel.
In one written statement, the Home Secretary set out details of a joint plan with Belgium, France, and The Netherlands to enhance efforts to "break the business model of migrant smuggling networks".
Cooper said: "Today I, jointly with German Interior Minister Faeser, convened Calais Group partners; Belgium, France, and The Netherlands, in London, in the presence of the European Commission and its agencies, Frontex and Europol to deliver real and tangible results on the fight against the dangerous people smuggling networks that threaten our collective border security. At this important forum, all Calais Group partners agreed to jointly deliver the Calais Group Priority Plan in 2025. This plan is testament to our shared commitment to dismantle the people smuggling networks – it builds on our excellent joint working through existing structures and refocuses shared priorities to bring to justice those that undermine our border security."
The short Calais Group Priority Plan on Countering Migrant Smuggling for 2025 can be read online here. It sets out the following five priorities for the Calais Group of countries:
- Coordinate preventative communications to realise upstream disruption in source and transit countries
- Strengthen enforcement capability and law enforcement cooperation through Europol to enhance targeting and disruption of prominent organised crime groups (OCGs) and their criminal supply chains
- Disrupt OCGs use of illicit finance through joint research and analysis to generate valuable tactical intelligence to enhance targeted preventative and investigative activity
- Tackle OCGs use of social media to recruit and advertise dangerous journeys across Europe and the Channel
- Explore the possibilities to enhance operational and technical cooperation, collectively and with other relevant partners such as Frontex, to tackle irregular migration
The Home Secretary added: "Alongside this crucial meeting, the Government is also today publishing a statement on Delivering Border Security, setting out our approach to establishing the Border Security Command, tackling organised immigration crime and improving the UK's border security. The new Border Security Command will lead and drive forward the required step change in the UK's approach to border security, including our international response."
You can read the Delivering Border Security statement here. It says that a new approach is needed to tackle organised immigration crime (OIC) and reduce irregular migration to the UK.
The statement sets out the following four key principles for how the Government's new Border Security Command (BSC) will tackle organised immigration crime:
- Prevent: disincentivise migrants and deter OCGs from participating in OIC
- Pursue: disrupt OCGs and their criminal activity
- Protect: detect and act on OIC at the border
- Prepare: manage, learn from and adapt the UK's response to tackling OIC
The Home Secretary also made a written statement yesterday on a new joint action plan with Germany to tackle irregular migration.
Yvette Cooper explained: "Yesterday, I signed a landmark agreement with the German Federal Minister of the Interior and Community Nancy Faeser. The UK-Germany Joint Action Plan to tackle irregular migration will deliver strengthened investigative and prosecutorial responses to organised immigration crime, alongside enhanced intelligence sharing between our respective law enforcement agencies and greater coordination of our efforts in source and transit countries to tackle irregular migration at source."
According to the Home Office, the joint agreement sees Germany confirm its intention to clarify their law to strengthen the ability of law enforcement to tackle people smuggling gangs. It makes it a criminal offence to facilitate the smuggling of migrants to the UK and gives German prosecutors more tools to tackle the supply and storage of small boats equipment.
The brief 3-page UK-Germany Joint Action Plan on Irregular Migration can be read here.
Daniel Sohege, director of human rights advocacy and support organisation Stand For All, noted in response in a thread on Bluesky: "All of this talk of 'harsher borders', 'closer cooperation', 'tougher enforcement', has been proven, repeatedly, to actually increase the risk of loss of life for people seeking safety …. All of this boils down to one very obvious solution. If you genuinely want to get serious about tackling smuggling gangs, you provide people with an alternative. That means making it safer and simpler to seek asylum. Anything else just plays to the gangs' business model'."