EU rejects new deal for return of migrants

The EU has rejected Britain’s attempts to create a new migrant returns agreement, which Rishi Sunak hoped would help to tackle the small boats crisis.

A European Commission official told Britain’s national security adviser this year that it was not open to a new readmission deal, according to official notes of the meeting seen by The Times.

Sunak hopes to return Channel migrants to European countries in which they had previously claimed asylum. Labour has also said it will seek to negotiate a new returns agreement with the EU if it wins the next election.

Despite six migrants having died in the Channel on August 12, about 100 people were rescued by the Border Force while crossing in two dinghies yesterday.

The deaths have focused attention on the British and French response to the crisis. President Macron has repeatedly rejected a bilateral returns agreement. He has insisted that Britain must address the issue at an EU level.

Any such agreement would require Britain to share Europe’s burden of resettling hundreds of thousands of migrants entering the bloc through irregular means, such as by boats to Italy and Greece, as stowaways in ferries or in lorries over the western Balkans.

The prime minister pushed fellow leaders at a summit of the Council of Europe in Reykjavik, Iceland, in May for closer co-operation on illegal migration, which included the proposal of a new migrant returns agreement.

Sunak has said any new deal with the EU would take longer than other measures and there was “no one solution” to the small boats crisis.

At the summit he won agreement from Ursula von der Leyen, president of the EU Commission, to negotiate a new partnership with Frontex, the EU’s border agency, to help combat small boats.

However, notes of a meeting this summer between Bjoern Seibert, von der Leyen’s head of cabinet, and Sir Tim Barrow, Britain’s national security adviser and former ambassador to the EU, made clear the commission was not open to a UK-EU readmissions agreement. The Times has seen the Cabinet Office notes written up at the meeting and sent to government departments.

A spokesman for the European Commission said Siebert did not recall rejecting the proposal, although they did not have notes from the meeting.

EU sources said the bloc was unlikely to have the capacity to negotiate with the UK in the near future because talks among member states about reforming its internal readmissions scheme had stalled. Proposals to replace the Dublin convention would require each EU member state to take at least 30,000 migrants a year or pay €20,000 for each migrant they did not accept. Hungary and Poland have blocked the plan. It was designed to help share the burden that falls on Greece and Italy.

Britain left the Dublin convention in 2020, as part of Brexit, but in that year tried to transfer 8,502 illegal migrants to EU countries, roughly the number who crossed the Channel in small boats. Only 105 requests were accepted. Britain accepted 882 requests from EU states to take asylum seekers.

A UK government source said: “The EU can’t even agree a migration deal between themselves so it’s no surprise they aren’t willing to discuss a readmissions agreement with the UK. The idea that this is the panacea to solving the small boats crisis is some way short of the mark. Labour need to get real. We need a deterrent.”

Other officials were more optimistic and said the EU had previously ruled out measures before negotiating.

A government source said: “The UK is working closely with international partners, including the EU and the member states, on breaking the business model of migrant traffickers. We are in the process of agreeing a framework for co-operation between our border forces.”

A government spokesman said Britain was open to working on a returns deal and was in regular conversation on a range of matters relating to asylum and migration.

The Daily Telegraph reported last night that migrants were reaching the UK through a different route, allegedly smuggled from Spain to the south of England in lorries.

For £14,000 per person, Albanian people smugglers were reported to be taking migrants from Santander on the north coast of Spain to Portsmouth to avoid the improved port security at Calais, Coquelles and Dunkirk.

The Times approached the Home Office for comment.