LONDON (AP) — Britain and Germany pledged Tuesday to share intelligence and expertise against the people-smuggling gangs that send migrants across the English Channel in small boats, the latest effort by European countries to stop the dangerous journeys.
Home Affairs Minister Yvette Cooper and her German counterpart, Home Affairs Minister Nancy Faeser, signed a ‘joint action plan’ during a meeting in London. Britain said that under the deal, Germany will make smuggling of migrants into Britain a specific criminal offense. Many of the rubber boats used to transport migrants across the Channel are stored in Germany.
“The criminal gangs organizing dangerous small boats across the Channel that undermine our border security and endanger lives are also the same gangs operating in Germany, operating across Europe and beyond,” Cooper said. “Law enforcement must also operate across borders.”
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Faeser said the cooperation would include “maintaining a high investigative pressure, exchanging information as best as possible between our security authorities and continuously investigating financial flows to identify the criminals operating behind the scenes.”
The two countries said they would also work to remove content about migrant smuggling from social media platforms, where many smuggling gangs promote their services.
The two ministers signed the agreement before a meeting in London of the “Calais Group” of Britain, Germany, Belgium, France and the Netherlands, along with the European Union’s police and border agencies, Europol and Frontex.
Britain’s center-left government is trying to rebuild its law enforcement and intelligence ties with Britain’s neighbors following the country’s exit from the EU in 2020. Brexit hampered international cooperation by removing the United Kingdom from Europol and to remove the bloc’s intelligence-sharing mechanism.
Despite efforts by France and Britain to stop this, the Channel Route remains a major smuggling corridor for people fleeing conflict or poverty. Many migrants prefer Britain for its language, family ties or perceived easier access to asylum and work.
So far this year, more than 31,000 migrants have made the dangerous crossing of one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, more than in all of 2023 but fewer than in 2022. Britain says more than 70 people have died in the attempts this year. This makes 2024 the deadliest since the number of canal crossings began to rise in 2018.
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Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
