Theresa May is facing new demands to stump up more cash for European migrant policing, with Belgium’s prime minister set to corner her at an EU summit in Salzburg in a bid to extract money.
Belgian media reports that Charles Michel, the country’s PM, will meet with Ms May at this week’s EU summit in Salzburg and ask her for a budget contribution similar to the one Britain already pays to France.
The backdrop to the latest demand is an ongoing political row in Belgium about so-called “trans-migrants” – who are increasingly travelling through Flanders on their way to the UK. Faced with disquiet in his governing coalition on the issue, Mr Michel is dragging Britain into the row in an apparent attempt to unite his domestic parties by shifting the focus on to the UK.
He is expected to tell Ms May that since the migrants are destined for the UK and it is Britain who benefits from the border policing, it should pay the bill to keep them excluded from the country.
Downing Street confirmed a bilateral meeting was scheduled between the two leaders, but a spokesperson said they were not aware of the expected demands for money, which have been reported in a number of Belgian media outlets.
Though focus on the Salzburg meeting in the UK media has been on the limited Brexit discussion set to take place, the headline topic of the summit is actually about migration and security – with countries piling in to defend their interests on the issue. The UK’s own National Crime Agency has already acknowledged that a crackdown on undocumented migration and people-smuggling in France has pushed activity into neighbouring Belgium, where people are now increasingly boarding lorries instead before travelling to the UK.
“In Belgium smuggling is prevalent. They are putting people on lorries in Belgium and then moving them across the border,” NCA deputy director Tom Dowdall told The Independent in July. “They are loading up HGVs at stops and service stations. Some of the drivers are being duped but an increasing number are complicit [and being paid].”
The NCA says it is working with the Belgian authorities, as well as those of neighbouring France and the Netherlands. In January of this year, Britain agreed to pay an extra £44.5m to France for policing at channel ports after Ms May came under pressure from Emmanuel Macron on the issue. The payments are a bilateral deal and are not dependent on Britain’s membership of the EU.
France had threatened to drop the Le Touquet deal – which allows British border controls to be sited on the France side of the channel – if the UK did not make a contribution to cover the costs of police work. Belgium also has so-called “juxtaposed controls” with UK passport checks conducted in Brussels for Eurostar passengers, albeit on a smaller scale.
The backdrop of continuing Brexit negotiations also means that Britain needs allies on the European Council, giving the Belgian government some potential cards to play if it looks to extract concessions.
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