Uk’s Rishi Sunak wants migrants return deal with the Eu

Payments to France to tackle small boats are ‘sensible investments’ for Britain, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says

di Cristina Gallardo

Uk Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hopes the recent improvement in relations with the EU will pave the way for an agreement to return undocumented migrants to the bloc, he said en route to France for a bilateral summit with Emmanuel Macron.

Speaking to reporters on the Eurostar train to Paris on Friday morning, Sunak said he hoped the Windsor Framework agreed last week with the European Commission would open the way for a deal on migration with the Eu.
Asked by Politico if he was aiming to negotiate an agreement to return undocumented migrants from Britain to the bloc, Sunak said he hoped to broach the subject later on Friday at his bilateral meeting with the French president.

«I think now, post the Windsor Framework being agreed, my hope is that that opens up other areas of constructive engagement and dialogue and cooperation with the Eu», he said. «I think we are starting to see some of that from [Commission] President [Ursula] von der Leyen the other week with regard to research collaboration, but I think more generally, there’s a range of things now that we will be able to have a constructive and positive dialogue on».

The Eu and the Uk hope the framework will put an end to a long-running dispute over post-Brexit trade rules in Northern Ireland, which had poisoned their bilateral relationship, and lead to more conversations on other potential areas for cooperation between London and Brussels.

Britain has been pushing to reach a bilateral migrant returns agreement with France, arguing asylum seekers should apply for protection in the first country deemed safe that they enter. But Paris has always insisted such an agreement should be discussed in Brussels as France is part of the Eu free-movement zone and can’t unilaterally make decisions of that nature. At the time it left the Eu, the Uk also exited the bloc’s Dublin system, which deals with asylum seekers in Eu countries, and no new arrangements to regulate returns have yet been agreed.

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