The EU gets involved in the boat crisis: the Commissioner for Home Affairs will travel to Mauritania with Marlaska

The Swedish politician appeared this Thursday in the European Parliament and acknowledged that the increase in the arrival of boats to the Canary Islands has been "dizzying"

September 10 2020 (19:14 WEST)
Updated in September 10 2020 (21:42 WEST)
The European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, and Minister Fernando Grande Marlaska
The European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, and Minister Fernando Grande Marlaska

The European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, reported this Thursday that she plans to travel to Mauritania next week accompanied by the Spanish Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, to "explore solutions" to the increase in migratory pressure on the Atlantic route and see "how to avoid" the traffic of canoes to the Canary Islands.

"I will travel with the Spanish Minister next week to Mauritania to see how we can avoid these terrible journeys," Johansson said, without giving more details about the agenda of the trip, in an appearance before the Committee on Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament, when asked about the deaths of migrants trying to reach the Canary archipelago in irregular boats.

The commissioner explained that the coronavirus crisis has changed the pattern of migratory pressure on the European Union, so that the Member States traditionally the destination of secondary movements of irregular migrants have received "very few" entries, while the countries on the front line, such as Italy, Greece or Spain, have been subject to a pressure "much higher".

The Swedish socialist has evoked several examples of increased migratory pressure, among which she mentioned the case of the Canary Islands, where she said that the increase in irregular arrivals has been "dizzying".

This drastic increase in migratory flow, the commissioner reasoned, is due to the impact of the pandemic, which has "complicated" the situation of many African countries, from where part of the population has been "forced" to leave their country.

In the debate, the chairman of the parliamentary committee, the Spanish socialist Juan Fernando López Aguilar, insisted to the commissioner on the "tragedy" of the Atlantic route, in which "many lose their lives" trying to reach the Canary Islands in canoes, as a gateway to the European Union.

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