MADRID: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country is backing Spain’s bid to stem the flow of migrants from Morocco to Europe via the Mediterranean, days after the two European countries signed a bilateral refugee deal.
Speaking after her arrival in the city of San Lucar de Barrameda in southern Spain for talks with the country’s new prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, Merkel said that Spain has the lead in discussions with their North African neighbour.
Honest cooperation with African nations was important to secure the return of rejected asylum seekers, she added.
Spain “is under enormous migration pressure coming from countries south of the Sahara,” Sanchez said.
Merkel added that a deal with African countries of origin and transit countries would only work “when both sides get something out of it... We can’t just talk about Africa, we have to talk with Africa,” she said.
Sanchez and his wife, Begona Gomez, greeted Merkel and her husband, Joachim Sauer, at the start of the two-day trip during which the issue of migration is set to take centre-stage.
Last Monday, Berlin and Madrid reached an agreement to send migrants arriving in Germany back to Spain within 48 hours if they already have a pending asylum request there.
Spain is the first European Union country to sign such an agreement with Germany. When asked whether the deal was only symbolic, given that so few asylum seekers actually arrive in Germany after registering in Spain, Merkel said that it showed “that Germany and Spain support a European solution” to the migration question.
Merkel is hoping to strike similar deals with Greece and Italy after a major showdown on asylum policy with Interior Minister Horst Seehofer that threatened to topple her coalition in early July.
The dispute saw Merkel promise measures to have asylum seekers already registered elsewhere in the EU returned to the state where they first claimed asylum.
As well as migration, the two leaders are expected to discuss economic and monetary reform in the EU, the recent Nato summit and European defence.
According to figures from the International Organization for Migration, Spain has become a new target destination for African migrants.
Most come from Morocco across the Strait of Gibraltar — only 14 kilometres wide at its narrowest point — or the Alboran Sea, located between the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa.
From January until the end of July, more than 23,000 people reached Spain’s shores via the Mediterranean — approximately three times as many as during the same period last year.
— dpa
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