The debate on undocumented migration into the EU has changed in recent years, and it is no longer taboo to talk about the fact that organised crime is mostly behind it, Pavla Novotná, Director of the Asylum and Migration Policy Department of the Czech Interior Ministry, said on Monday.
“Illegal migration to Europe is primarily organised by organised crime,” Novotná said during a seminar on Africa and security challenges for Europe organised in the Czech Parliament.
She also pointed out that while such statements were taboo a decade ago, they are now part of a mainstream debate in the EU. Moreover, she emphasised that in the EU, there is finally a consensus on protecting the EU’s external border, on a return policy, on curbing uncontrolled migration pressures and fighting organised crime.
“There is clearly already a prevailing rhetoric, an absolutely prevailing rhetoric, that it is not foreign elements which will decide who comes, but us,” Novotná said.
She also said that implementing the return policy remains a challenge for the whole EU.
“Because a return policy, if you don’t have that partner on the other side, doesn’t exist,” the department director noted, adding that it is necessary to create better relations with African partners and to understand internal developments in African countries.
Strengthening the return policy is also among the goals of the EU’s migration and asylum pact. The legislation presented in 2020 is in the final round of EU negotiations, with the aim of finishing work on the proposals by February 2024.
According to the EU’s border and coast guard agency Frontex, the number of irregular border crossings at the EU’s external borders rose by 18% in the first ten months of 2023 to nearly 331,600.
This is the highest number for the period since 2015. The Central Mediterranean route stretching between North Africa and Italy remained the busiest migratory route into the EU in 2023, with more than 143,600 detections reported by national authorities in the first three quarters of 2023.
(Aneta Zachová | Euractiv.cz)
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