Brussels scuppers hopes of sending Channel migrants back to Europe

The European Commission has rejected French president Emmanuel Macron’s call for an EU-wide agreement for migrants crossing the Channel illegally to be sent back to Europe.

Brussels has no plans to negotiate a migrant return deal with Rishi Sunak, despite improved relations after the new Brexit agreement on Northern Ireland.

“The European Commission is not envisaging an asylum returns agreement with the UK right now,” an EU official told The Telegraph.

The Prime Minister and Mr Macron agreed at a summit in France last Friday on a deal to tackle the small boats crisis. The agreement will cost the UK £470 million over the next three years.

The French president insisted any returns deal would have to be made at EU level, rather than between Paris and London, as the two leaders tried to rebuild relations badly strained by Brexit.

The UK left the EU’s Dublin Regulation, which gives the right for countries to send back illegal migrants to the first safe EU country they landed in, at Brexit.

Brussels is responsible for negotiating EU-wide agreements on behalf of its member states and is the only body able to strike a replacement return deal.

EU officials have now ruled out a deal for the short to medium term.

Mr Sunak has not given up hope on an EU returns agreement in the long term and hopes Paris can use its influence to sway Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president.

But the swift rebuff from Brussels risks fuelling suspicions that Mr Macron, an enthusiastic Europhile, only called for the deal to avoid directly refusing to take Channel migrants back.

The commission’s position may change in the long term, sources said, but the new Windsor Framework for Northern Ireland has not changed minds in Brussels.

There is also no great push from other European capitals to demand that work begins on preparing for migration negotiations with Britain.

Migration is one of the most divisive issues in the EU, which would make getting countries’ support for talks to begin, let alone for a deal itself, difficult.

The EU has historically been reluctant to start negotiations on a new migration deal in Brexit talks with the UK.

The commission’s negotiating mandate for the UK-EU trade deal and the Windsor Framework did not include a new agreement on migration.

London has instead been forced to try to strike bilateral deals on migration with individual member states. This has given transit countries such as France, Belgium and the Netherlands leverage to ask for more money to fight the problem.

'Regular dialogue'

Brussels dismissed British requests for a new migration deal during the 2020 free trade negotiations. Instead, it offered “regular dialogue” over the issue.

“The UK [...] expressed instead interest in concluding with the EU agreements on the readmission of illegally entering or residing persons, and the transfer of unaccompanied minor asylum seekers,” the commission said at the time.

“However, neither of these two topics was covered by the EU mandate,” it added, before noting: “The UK may wish to approach some member states bilaterally on these matters.”