Britain expects the EU to approve its migration returns deal with France, the home secretary has said, after France said it needed to be legally ratified before being put into action.
Yvette Cooper said on Friday she thought the European Commission would sign off on the pilot scheme, which will involve some people who cross the Channel in small boats being returned to France, in return for some asylum seekers being moved from France to the UK.
The scheme, which was announced on Thursday by the prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, would mark the first time France has agreed to take back some of those who cross the Channel. But many details of the scheme remain unclear, such as how many will be returned and when it will start.
Talking to LBC radio on Friday, Cooper said she did not expect the rollout to be delayed by opposition from Europe, despite Mediterranean countries having voiced concern about the prospects of returned asylum seekers travelling back to southern Europe.
“We have been talking to the EU commissioners,” she said. “We’ve also been talking to other European interior ministers and governments throughout this process.
“The French interior minister and I have been speaking about this, to develop this, since October of last year, and the EU commissioners have been very supportive. So that is why we have designed this in a way to work, not just for the UK and France, but in order to fit with all their concerns as well.”
Asked whether she was confident it would be signed off by the EU, she said: “Because we’ve done that work all the way through, we do expect the EU commission to continue to be supportive.”
However, she did not say what approach she expected from individual member states including Spain, Italy, Greece, Malta and Cyprus.
Starmer and Macron announced the pilot at the end of a three-day state visit by the French president that was designed to show a new level of post-Brexit cooperation between the two countries.
Under the scheme, British officials will choose a certain number of arrivals to return to areas of France away from the northern coast, in return for taking asylum seekers who can show they have a family link to Britain.
Ministers hope the scheme will discourage people from making the Channel crossing at all, though will not say how many people will be returned or how they will be chosen.
Cooper said on Friday: “We’re actually not fixing the ultimate figures, either for the pilot or for any further phases, different phases of this.”
Neither Cooper nor Starmer, however, have denied reports that the pilot will originally apply to just 50 people a week – about 6% of the average weekly total.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: “The numbers will be tiny … We will be allowing 94% of illegal immigrants to remain in the UK, which is no deterrent whatsoever.”
