UK-France £650m Channel deal talks stall over small-boat crossings
Negotiations over a new £650 million deal with France to help prevent small boat crossings across the English Channel have come to a halt.
British and French officials were continuing talks on Monday to reach a deal before the current £475m deal, signed in 2023, expires at midnight on Tuesday.
Discussions have stalled over how to release a funding package of around £650 million from the UK to France over the next three years, according to sources involved in the negotiations.
Home Affairs Minister Shabana Mahmood reportedly demanded stricter conditions that would mean the money would be released after the French reached a certain intervention rate.
Currently the French block 33 percent of crossings; Home Office figures show rates have fallen to blocking just 2,064 passes out of 6,233.
Xavier Ducept, France’s secretary-general for the sea, said tying funding to intervention rates would put lives at risk.
“They should not tie this financing to a kind of productivity condition that would be extremely dangerous for immigrants,” he told a French parliamentary committee on Friday.
A separate migrant repatriation deal struck between Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron last summer resulted in 377 migrants being sent back to France and 380 asylum seekers being transferred to the UK.
British negotiators also rejected demands to pay the salaries of staff at a new immigration detention center in northern France. Times reports.
The detention center in Dunkirk was agreed as part of the final deal in 2023 but has been repeatedly delayed due to planning permission. However, British negotiators want this center to be completed this year as a condition of a new agreement.
Due to the high costs of French illegal immigration patrols in northern France, funding from the UK is critical in tackling migrants crossing the channel in small boats.
Border forces said there would be an increase in the number of migrants evading capture if a deal is not reached.
A source from the French interior ministry told the French newspaper: Le Monde“Negotiations failed”. “Everything went up to the ministerial level,” he added.
However, the British Home Office denied this and emphasized that talks between officials were continuing and that ministers had not yet participated in the talks.
A Home Office spokesman said: “France is our most important migration partner and our joint work is focused on small boat crossings.
“We have prevented more than 40,000 crossing attempts by illegal immigrants since the government took office. Our landmark agreement means illegal immigrants arriving on small boats will be sent back to France.”
