The Government Director of the European border company, Frontex, Hans Leijtens, assured this Wednesday that the company is awaiting the request from the Spanish authorities to bolster assist in response to the migration disaster within the Canary Islands, the place he identified there’s a “structural improve” in arrivals.
In a presentation on the European Parliament, Leijtens defined that there’s a “regarding” state of affairs within the Canary Islands with the “structural improve” within the arrival of small boats with migrants making an attempt to illegally attain Spain, though he famous that the help that Frontex can present “completely relies upon” on the requests made by the Spanish authorities, with whom they’re negotiating for the 2025 train.
“I hope we get a request for the assistance that I do know is required. I’ve talked with migrant reception facilities and with the Civil Guard and I’m conscious of the state of affairs, however every little thing begins with the request from the Spanish authorities. The absence of this doesn’t enable me to help the authorities,” he argued.
In keeping with Leijtens, from his visits to Madrid and the Canary Islands, he gathers that the main focus of the Spanish authorities is to work with nations of origin and transit, akin to Senegal, Mauritania, and Gambia, which on this case limits Frontex’s capacity to behave because it lacks a authorized framework governing relations and protocols with these nations. “We are going to attempt to discover a strategy to contribute, but it surely completely depends upon the requests made by the Spanish administrations,” he burdened.
The top of Frontex argued that that is how the company works and that it follows the present agreements in Europe to intervene in migration points. Nonetheless, he defended a versatile company that may reply inside days to disaster conditions, citing for example the deployment of brokers in Finland three days after Helsinki raised the alarm in regards to the arrival of migrants from Russia.
Leijtens responded to questions from a number of Spanish parliamentarians, together with ex-minister from the PP Juan Ignacio Zoido, who criticized Spain for not utilizing the instruments allowed by the EU in a “unsustainable state of affairs” within the Canary Islands.
From the PSOE, Juan Fernando López Aguilar took the chance to criticize the obstruction by PP and Vox of the regulation reform proposal to distribute migrants among the many Spanish autonomous communities, as requested by the Canary Islands authorities.
In the meantime, Jorge Buxadé, from Vox, pointed to the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for example of migration administration whereas Spain is experiencing a “brutal progress” in arrivals.
Alternatively, the president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, despatched a letter this Wednesday to the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, requesting to seem earlier than the MEPs to elucidate the “vital” state of affairs within the islands and to demand the help of the European Union (EU) in response to the migration emergency.
The letter to the president of the European Parliament reminds that the archipelago at the moment helps historic information of canoe arrivals, which represents a “large impression” in any respect ranges within the archipelago, “which already suffers from the actual circumstances of the ultraperiphery and the place the consequences of the large arrival of migrants characterize a serious problem that have to be addressed, undoubtedly, with the help and a coordinated technique amongst all establishments, at regional, nationwide and European ranges.”
Clavijo emphasised to Metsola that, because the southern border of Europe, the Canary Islands is the gateway to European territory for a lot of migrants touring from the coasts of West Africa, by the ‘Atlantic Route’, “one of many deadliest migration routes on the planet, the place quite a few individuals lose their lives of their try to achieve European soil.”
From January 1 to August 31 of this yr, the Canary Islands have already obtained 25,554 migrants, which represents a 123% improve in comparison with the primary eight months of 2023, the yr during which 39,910 individuals arrived within the archipelago by sea, in accordance with a word from the Government.
This determine was already 154% increased than the one registered in 2022 and broke the historic ceiling reached within the so-called ‘cayucos disaster’ of 2006.
