UK says EU backs migrant returns deal despite pushback from southern members

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British ministers claim that the European Commission will support the agreement of migrants between France and the United Kingdom, even when it faces a severe reaction from many European countries and politicians on the French right.

Interior Minister, IVite Cooper, said on Friday morning that the United Kingdom and France have been developing the experimental plan since last October and “European Union Commissioners have been very supportive.”

“We have designed this way to work, not only for the United Kingdom and France, but in order to suit all their fears as well,” LBC told LBC, adding, “We expect the European Union Committee to continue supporting.”

The UK Prime Minister Sir Kerr Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday that they would launch a “one and one” experimental plan in the coming weeks, according to which some immigrants who arrive in the United Kingdom are detained by small boats and sent to France. The United Kingdom will then accept the same number of immigrants from France who have a legitimate claim, especially for the family reunification.

Cooper declined to comment on the number of immigrants who would be part of the initial plan, or the extent of the great ministers hope to become once the pilot ended.

Although the agreement represents an important turning point in British and French diplomacy, the huge obstacles to implementation are still in place, including tensions on the place where migrants will end with the United Kingdom.

The agreement raises difficult questions for the European Union, and will shed light on its dysfunctional systems to deal with immigrants who have long divided the member states in the south and north.

An official from the Ministry of Interior said that the deal will not need “official approval” from the committee, but the United Kingdom and France “will ensure that they commit the legal foundations.”

They said: “We have worked closely with them all the time, so we are not very concerned.”

A starem spokesman said that these arrangements were discussed with the committee and “did not expect any problems.”

He added: “We have made a lot of work to ensure that these measures are strong for legal challenges.”

“The intention is that they are separated from northern France,” he said when asked about what happened after irregular immigrants from the United Kingdom were repeated under the plan.

He added that what happened to the returning immigrants was eventually to France.

Macron bears a political risk by setting a precedent post -Britain’s exit from the European Union to restore immigrants from the United Kingdom, and it is likely to face the payment of opposition politicians, especially from the far right.

Former French presidents rejected requests from the British government to accept the returns of asylum seekers, on the pretext that they are people trying to reach the United Kingdom, not the responsibility of France.

Kazavier Bertrand, head of the Hotz Diranis region in northern France on the border with the channel, told BFMTV on Friday that the deal was a “bad deal for France” and a “good deal for English”. “The English language needs to stop our treatment like subcontractors,” he said.

“If there is no Europe, this cannot succeed,” he said.

He said: “It is up to the countries in which they entered, in particular, to take their share of the burden … This is a problem in the first place of the European Union.”

The right -wing Calais Mayor, Natasha Bouchart, said she was “angry” from the new arrangement, which she said would “add to the ranks of” illegal immigrants “bring the turmoil” to the city.

However, the so-called Mediterranean, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain-spoke against the UK deal. The five states represent the largest part of the European Union immigrants, and the fear that France will seek to return the immigrants to the homeland who have been deported from the United Kingdom to them, citing the alleged rules of Dublin on the remaining immigrants in the country of the first European Union they enter.

But the implementation of this mechanism was incomplete, after resistance from the southern countries that argue that it is already burdened by the new arrivals and need more support from the northern states. For example, France only last year transferred approximately 8 percent of those that sought to return to their country from entering the Dublin bases, according to Eurostat.

The deal comes in an embarrassing time for the European Union because it implements its new deportation and asylum agreement, amid calls from some capitals until the rules are tightened to restrict migrant expatriates.

A spokesman for the committee said on Thursday that Brussels “is working with France and the United Kingdom, as well as the member states of the European Union to support the compatible solutions and the European Union’s speech,” adding: “Our joint focus on implementing the agreement on migration and asylum remains.”