The Diplomat
The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, announced yesterday in Stockholm that the Spanish Presidency of the EU will strengthen police cooperation between the European Union and the United States in the fight against organized crime in the digital environment and against synthetic drugs.
Grande-Marlaska participated yesterday in the Swedish capital in the EU-US Justice and Home Affairs ministerial meeting, in which he presented the security priorities of the upcoming Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union. He also held a bilateral meeting with the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, to whom he conveyed Spain’s support to combat fentanyl trafficking. The meeting was also attended by the Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, and the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson.
During his speech, Grande-Marlaska announced that the Spanish Presidency will strengthen police cooperation between the European Union and the United States in the fight against organized crime in the digital environment and against synthetic drugs, such as fentanyl, an opioid used legally as an analgesic but whose illegal use and trade is causing a high number of deaths in the United States. On June 5, DEA Administrator General Anne Milgram warned about the consequences of this drug during the meeting of the European Coalition against Organized Crime, held in Antwerp (Belgium).
According to the minister, it is “an epidemic that we have to tackle together”, because “all the challenges and threats require global action, a joint work with our international partners, where the relationship between the European Union and the United States is and will be essential and unquestionable”.
The minister also took advantage of this meeting, held in the framework of the Swedish Presidency of the EU, to present the priorities of the next Spanish Presidency in security matters to his counterparts from the United States and the European Union, as he did on June 8 at the Council of Interior Ministers held in Luxembourg.
According to Grande-Marlaska, these priorities include areas “of obvious transatlantic interest”, such as migration policy and the approval of the future Pact on Migration and Asylum, the pursuit of the “global phenomenon” of terrorism and organized crime. Likewise, the Minister urged the EU and the US to continue to equip themselves with advanced technological tools to act in the digital world and in an environment of international collaboration and announced that Spain will give “special relevance to the link with Latin America with the aim of it becoming a structural and constant relationship”. Fernando Grande-Marlaska also announced that the next High Level meeting between the EU and the US on Justice and Home Affairs will take place in Madrid on October 5 and 6.
Grande-Marlaska also held a bilateral meeting yesterday with Alejandro Mayorkas, with whom he has already met on two other occasions: in Madrid, on June 23, 2021, and in Washington, on February 23, 2022. During the meeting, the minister conveyed to Mayorkas Spain’s commitment to tackle fentanyl trafficking and reiterated that the Spanish Presidency will publicize, within the EU, the social and human crisis caused by fentanyl, “in order to strengthen transatlantic ties to combat the organized crime that fuels it”. To this end, the Spanish semester has scheduled several meetings that will address the issue with the participation of experts from the U.S. DEA.
In addition, the minister asked Mayorkas for US collaboration in consolidating the Latin American Committee on Homeland Security (CLASI) and Ameripol, the police body in which eleven American countries participate, and stressed the importance of the bilateral agreement that will allow resettlements from the future Secure Mobility Centers that the United States will establish in Latin American countries.
