The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex, has suspended its operations in Spain, becoming the only European Union country not to renew its operations with Frontex for this year.
The decision comes following a failure to reach an agreement for 2024.
According to El Pais, Frontex has suspended its operations against irregular migration in the Mediterranean, the Alboran Sea, and the Canary Islands since January 24 after Madrid failed to agree to the agency’s 2024 plan.
Spain does not want to accept the agency’s conditions, especially those on migrant data protection. The local media report said that the two parties had agreed on January 25 to give the matter a week in order to reach an agreement.
According to a report from El Pais, the resources deployed in Spain will be withdrawn, referring to nearly 350 police officers alongside sea and air vessels used for patrolling the Spanish coast as well as the European Union’s southern border.
However, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told journalists on the same day that“it is merely a technical issue that will be solved in the coming hours and not an operating matter”.
Spain is attempting to manage the increased number of irregular migrants who attempt to reach this country.
The number of migrants who attempted to enter Spain in an irregular way increased by more than 80 per cent last year, with a record number heading to the Canary Islands, according to provisional interior ministry figures.
The same source revealed that 56,852 migrants entered Spain in an unlawful way last year, thus accounting for an increase of 82.1 per cent compared to 2022 statistics and the most significant increase since 2018, when 64,298 people attempted to reach this country in an irregular way.
According to an RFI report, of the total, 39,910 arrived in the Canary Islands by boat, crossing from Africa, thus accounting for an increase of 154.5 per cent over last year and also exceeding the record number registered in 2006.
The figures from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency revealed that irregular border crossing attempts registered at the EU’s external borders last year reached 2016 levels, with a total of 380,000 detections registered.
In addition, according to Frontex, the number of irregular border crossings last year was up by 17 per cent compared to 2022 statistics, thus indicating an increasing trend over the past three years.
