By Omar Bah
The European Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas has announced during an official visit to Africa that the EU will redouble its effort in the prevention of irregular arrivals from The Gambia, Senegal and Mauritania.
The European Union, Schinas added, “will continue to play an important role in the prevention of irregular arrivals by strengthening cooperation and partnership with countries of origin and transit, which are of particular interest for the migration management in the Canary Islands, such as Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia.”
Schinas added that the European Commission will soon make an additional €14 million package of financial assistance available to Spain to improve the Canary Islands reception capacity for irregular migrants, especially minors.
“Brussels will allow for the exceptional use of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to address the current migration emergency in the Canary Islands,” Schinas stressed.
In the Canary Islands, Schinas added, “you are not alone; Europe is at your side,” Schinas told a joint press conference with the region’s president, Fernando Clavijo, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.”
Clavijo, whose government is allied with the region’s Partido Popular (PP), recently complained that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government had “abandoned” the Canary Islands during the summer migration crisis.
Schinas also said that cooperation must be based on a broad offer, not only on migration but also on growth, trade, investment and opportunities for people to build a better life, as opposed to the option of ending up “in the hands of (human) traffickers”.
“We have dealt with migration as firefighters, and now it is time to act as architects”, Schinas stated while defending the EU border control agency Frontex’s role in managing migration flows, especially on intelligence and logistics, with the will to “expand Frontex’s presence also in operational matters”, he added.
Schinas estimated that the EU had earmarked €500 million to fund migration in Spain and that the Canary Islands, in particular, have been allocated €20 million on top of the €14 million announced on Wednesday.
According to a new survey by the state-run Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS), immigration is currently the main problem for most Spaniards, whereas only three months ago, the main concern of citizens was high unemployment (11.27 %), EFE reported.
Between January 1 and August 15 this year, 22,304 migrants reached the islands, compared with 9,864 in the same period in 2023 – an increase of 126 percent, according to interior ministry figures.
Across all of Spain, there were 31,155 arrivals up to mid-August, a 66.2-percent increase on the 18,745 a year earlier.
Also, since 2014 at least 4,857 people have died or disappeared while trying to reach the Canary Islands, according to the UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
