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On the occasion of the visit to Senegal of five European commissioners, the EU is proposing to the government the deployment of Frontex, the European agency for coastguards and border guards. The European Commission would consider deployment by the summer if an agreement is reached with the Senegalese authorities.
With our correspondent in Brussels, Pierre Benazet
This is currently a proposal made by Ylva Johansson. The Commissioner for Home Affairs raised the issue with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, the Armed Forces and the Interior this Friday in Dakar.
For the European Union, the immediate interest is to control human trafficking with boats leaving the Senegalese coast for the Spanish archipelago of the Canaries. But the principle would also be to monitor migratory movements towards Europe via Mauritania or the longer route via Algeria and Libya.
The idea is an operational collaboration of the coastguards and border guards of the Frontex agency with the Senegalese national gendarmerie and under its direction. The EU is considering the deployment of ships, personnel and equipment. The European Commissioner for Home Affairs mentioned, for example, drones.
The Frontex agency for the surveillance of the Union’s external borders is gaining momentum: its workforce should rise to 10,000 coast guards and border guards in four years, ten times more than in 2018. It has never been deployed outside Europe and this proposal made in Senegal illustrates in advance the priority that Europe will place on migration issues during the summit with the African Union in a week.