<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska met with European Commissioner for International Partnerships Jozef Síkela in Madrid on Tuesday. He agreed with him on the need to strengthen cooperation with the Sahel countries on migration issues and advocated for changes to the Frontex regulations to strengthen its external dimension and its ability to reach cooperation agreements with third countries.</strong></h4> "We need the EU to strengthen its preventive approach. If the number of irregular arrivals is high, it will be very difficult for the (European migration) pact to succeed," the minister told the commissioner during a meeting at the Ministry's headquarters in Madrid, according to the Interior Ministry's website. "Spain has defended this preventive approach in every forum, based on two decades of experience in cooperation policies with countries of origin and transit of migration," continued Grande-Marlaska, who informed Síkela of the deployment of National Police and Civil Guard troops in Mauritania, Senegal, and Gambia, in cooperation with local police forces to combat human trafficking gangs. According to the Interior Minister, this cooperation has led to a reduction of up to 40 percent of migratory flows at source on the Atlantic route to the Canary Islands. He also stated that, as of April 30, irregular arrivals in Spain had decreased by 30 percent nationally and by 34 percent in the Canary Islands compared to the same period in 2024. The minister also highlighted the "key importance" of Mauritania, Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, and Gambia in migratory flows to Europe and insisted that cooperation must come not only from the most affected Member States, but also from the European Commission. In this regard, Grande-Marlaska thanked the commissioner for Mauritania being the first country visited by the European Commission since its establishment in December 2024. Grande-Marlaska affirmed that the new Multiannual Financial Framework represents a "great opportunity" to improve investment in the Sahel and commit "structural and predictable financing" tailored to the challenges of the main migration routes, "including the Atlantic one." <h5><strong>Frontex</strong></h5> In addition to economic and financial assistance and the delivery of equipment, the minister requested the commissioner to establish a presence of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) in these countries and advocated for changes to the European agency's Regulation, which is scheduled to be revised in 2026, with the aim of strengthening its external dimension and providing it with the necessary instruments to reach cooperation agreements with third countries. Since 2020, the Spanish government has repeatedly requested Frontex's support for maritime surveillance of the African Atlantic coast, especially the coasts of Mauritania, Gambia, and Senegal, from which the largest number of vessels depart for the Canary Islands. To achieve this, according to the executive, Frontex must have executive powers in countries of origin and transit for irregular migration. "To date, no agreement has been reached with any African country from which the boats arriving in the Canary Islands depart," the Ministry of the Interior lamented on December 30 in a parliamentary response to the People's Party (PP). In the Government's view, the causes of the increase in arrivals to the Canary Islands are not in Spain, but in the countries of origin and transit of irregular immigration, and, therefore, it is "necessary to focus preventive efforts on these countries," as "has been repeatedly requested of the Commission and the Frontex Agency, which faces significant limitations in its capacity for preventive action," the Ministry added in that parliamentary response. <h5><strong>Albares</strong></h5> Following this meeting, Josef Síkela (who had met with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez the day before) was received by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, who warned that sustainable development cooperation must be "a priority within the EU budget of the new European Commission," according to the Ministry in a press release. Albares and Síkela also reviewed the new Multiannual Financial Framework, regarding which the minister advocated for strengthening the financing of the European Union's sustainable development cooperation policies and warned that the suspension of foreign aid by the US and the real risk of the permanent closure of USAID make the EU a necessary player as "the world's leading donor in the humanitarian and development fields."
