First modification:
In the French port city, one of the key sites of the narrow maritime passage, a conclave will take place in which the French Minister of the Interior will be together with his counterparts from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and officials of the European Commission. It will not have members of the Government of the United Kingdom after the letter that Boris Johnson published on social networks last Friday, where he asks for “greater collaboration” and aroused the anger of the Gauls.
After days convulsed by the sinking of a precarious migrant boat that ended with the death of 27 people in the English Channel, European leaders will meet in the French city of Calais to define the steps to follow in relation to the migratory flow and its prevention. The interior ministers of France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and officials of the European Commission will attend.
However, this meeting is marked by the absence of representatives from the United Kingdom after they withdrew the invitation for Priti Patel – Interior Minister – as a reaction to the letter that Prime Minister Boris Johnson published last Friday and that did not go down well with the French Government.
In that letter, the British president proposed actions to develop with France to have greater collaboration in migratory prevention, such as jointly patrolling the French coast, something that was taken as an invasion of sovereignty. “I am surprised at these ways, they are not serious,” Emmanuel Macron said, while others called them “inadmissible.”
However, this Sunday Patel reaffirmed the meaning of the letter by stating that the United Kingdom will demand “greater cooperation” from European countries so that “worse events” do not occur in the English Channel after the sinking of the migrant boat from the last week.
Through a statement, the minister assured that it is not a problem that the British Government can solve alone. “Throughout Europe we must take a step forward, take responsibility and work together in times of crisis,” asserts the note, which also states that there are “no quick fixes or silver bullets.”
In turn, Patel also said that he will not evade the challenge of solving this problem and confirmed that next week he will try to establish contacts with his colleagues in the European Union.
I will be holding urgent talks with my European counterparts this week to prevent further tragedies in the Channel.
More international cooperation and passing our Borders Bill quickly into law will stop the people smugglers and save lives. https://t.co/ybkHjdyd9I
– Priti Patel (@pritipatel) November 28, 2021
The migration issue of the English Channel reignited tensions between the French and the British, which continue to add chapters in these hours. This Sunday, coincidentally the day of the meeting in Calais, the weekly newspaper ‘Le Journal du Dimanche’ published an article showing complaints from French policemen about their British peers.
In the article, the agents state that, on the other side of the sea crossing, they are not given useful information nor do they receive responses to the documents or materials they are provided with.
The disagreements between London and Paris continue to accumulate
Boris Johnson’s letter was a new episode in the tense relationship they have with the Government of Emmanuel Macron. In it, which Downing Street said simply had a “spirit of cooperation,” the prime minister listed measures to move forward with the resolution of the migration crisis.
These included the proposal to jointly patrol to avoid boats, technological deployment, raking in the waters of both and a bilateral agreement on “returns” of immigrants.
Beyond the propositions, in France the method of dissemination and the forms, totally removed from the traditional media, generated discomfort. Macron’s government spokesman, Gabriel Attal, classified her as “poor at heart and out of place.” “We are fed up with double talk and outsourcing problems,” he added.
The misunderstandings between the French and the British have been dragging on since Brexit, but they have been raging since last October, when the United Kingdom did not grant licenses to fishing boats, prohibiting access to its waters and ports.
In addition, in September, France showed its displeasure over the defense alliance that the British assembled with the United States and Australia, which led to the cancellation of the oceanic ones on a multimillion-dollar submarine contract.
With EFE
.