Spain and the European border agency (Frontex) have finally reached an agreement to resume their joint operations against irregular immigration.
The activity of the agency, which has ships and planes and more than 300 agents deployed in Spain, will resume this Monday night, after being suspended for five days.
Both parties had until last Tuesday to approve the 2024 operations framework, but were not able to reach an agreement.
The key was the resistance of the Spanish authorities to “lose ownership and responsibility” of the personal data obtained from immigrants, according to Interior sources.
Without an agreement, there was no legal basis to act and all the agency's activity was paralyzed, as EL PAÍS revealed last Thursday.
The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, assured that same day that it was a technical issue and that it would be resolved “in a matter of hours, rather than days.”
Finally, there was a signature,
in extremis
, in a “simplified and urgent” procedure and almost five days later.
The final agreement contains an intermediate solution to satisfy both parties, according to sources familiar with the negotiations, and grants Spain full control of certain more sensitive information.
It is not so unusual for the authorities and the agency to have certain power disputes, but the lack of understanding in these negotiations caused an unprecedented situation.
Not only was Spain the only EU country that still had not signed its operational plan for 2024, but, overnight, all Frontex actions in the Mediterranean, the Alboran Sea and the Canary Islands were suspended.
With positions castled, the agency gave itself a period of one week to agree on the plan or assured that all resources deployed in Spain would be withdrawn.
Among other things, because their presence here costs thousands of euros every day, even though they have been unemployed like these days.
In addition to the cost of the planes and boats, which the agency finances, Frontex agents, depending on their country of origin, charge subsistence allowances of up to 120 euros per day and up to 175 euros for hotel accommodation.
In the time in which the collaboration has remained paralyzed, more than 2,500 people have arrived in Spain irregularly.
A source familiar with the negotiations maintains that “it was obvious” that they had to reach an agreement.
“There are too many interests at stake – among others, the economic one – but, after a year of negotiating the plans for the following year, this delay is not understood,” she laments.
Operation Indalo alone, which takes place in the Mediterranean and the Alboran Sea, represents an investment of around 63 million euros paid for by the European Union.
But there was also a reputational issue and that is that Spain would be the only community country that cannot reach an understanding with a key agency for the EU in the midst of a surge in arrivals.
The agency, on the other hand, still has a serious image crisis due to its internal management and its collaboration with illegal returns of migrants in the Aegean Sea.
The Ministry of the Interior and Frontex, in fact, negotiate each year the operational plan in which the three operations that the agency carries out in Spain (Peninsula and Balearic Islands, Canary Islands and Crossing the Strait) are framed.
This plan regulates all the fine print of joint activities and this includes everything from the tasks of the officers, the objectives of the operations, the means deployed, or what will be financed.
But the obstacle in this episode has been the use of data on immigrants who enter the territory irregularly.
“Spain conveyed from the beginning that it was not willing to lose either ownership or responsibility for the personal data obtained in joint operations in Spain, a position that it will continue to defend,” Interior sources maintained last week.
Frontex agents identify a rescued migrant, in the port of Algeciras on March 5, 2023.A.Carrasco Ragel (EFE)
When a boat arrives, the National Police, but also Frontex, interview its occupants.
They are asked, in addition to their personal data, the route they have taken and the
modus operandi
of who brought them.
The way of obtaining this information has been questioned by the Ombudsman, but both the Spanish authorities and the agency have defended that it is key to understanding migratory flows, developing risk analysis and, in the best of cases, to dismantle the networks that facilitate irregular immigration.
The operational plan establishes who has control of this data and what use is made of it and Spain has fought to maintain maximum control over this information.
There are data that are more sensitive than others.
The information obtained in a basic interview with an immigrant who has just arrived is not the same as that obtained from someone about whom there are indications that he has committed a cross-border crime, such as human trafficking.
This last information is what Spain will retain, which will decide who it shares it with.
The most basic information will be processed and controlled by both, according to sources familiar with the negotiation.
It is not clear why the General Directorate of International Relations, which has led the negotiations for the first time (previously they were led by the National Police and the Civil Guard), has decided to fight over this issue.
Interior sources explained that the agency modified its data protection regulations on January 18 and that this change altered the negotiations because it had to be adapted to Spanish regulations, but other sources consulted did not see the conflict.
“The proposal that Frontex put on the table barely reflected on paper what is already being done on the ground,” explains one of them.
“Information is power,” illustrates Gil Arias, who was executive director of the agency from 2006 to 2016. Arias lived and suffered several fights between Frontex and Spain during his mandate.
To understand the power relations between each other, we must not only look at the agency, but also take into account the disputes between the Police and the Civil Guard over the control of information and powers.
At his time, he also threatened to suspend Frontex activity, although punctually and only in the Strait Crossing operation, which is deployed every summer when thousands of Moroccans return to their country on vacation.
The reason at that time was a fight between police and civil guards to see who led the canine teams.
The last clash regarding operational plans occurred in 2021, when the agency also threatened to leave Spain due to the lack of agreement.
Finally, as on this occasion, the offices were mobilized to prevent it.
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