The British Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, and her Belgian counterpart, Bernard Quintin, signed a new police cooperation agreement on Wednesday that will allow both countries to share intelligence information with the aim of combating human trafficking and addressing the current migration crisis.
"The smuggling trade of migrants does not begin or end on the beaches of northern France. These gangs operate across borders, so we will work with all available international partners to track them down, shut them down, and bring them to justice," Mahmood expressed on social media.
The Home Secretary in the United Kingdom has admitted that there is still "much to be done." "This agreement will help the police in the United Kingdom and Belgium tighten the noose around the criminal gangs behind the crossings in small boats," she indicated, emphasizing the importance of strengthening the joint response.
The signed text includes mechanisms to expedite actions and provides, among other points, that Belgian police officers may carry weapons on Eurostar trains that do not stop in French territory. It also intensifies surveillance in cross-border operations and regulates the exchange of data on vehicles used in the transport of drugs, migrants, or nautical material.
"Our common ambition is to continue fighting together against the illicit trafficking of migrants and organized crime related to drug trafficking, which proliferate on both sides of our borders and exploit human misery," Quintin noted, according to the broadcasting chain RTBF.
This is the first bilateral police cooperation treaty signed between a member state of the European Union and the United Kingdom since the British exit from the community bloc, Brexit, which became effective at the beginning of 2020 following the referendum held in 2016.