Irregular immigration to the EU from Western Africa rose more than ten times on the year in January, according to the bloc's Frontex border agency, which expects overall arrivals to grow in 2024 and says halting the movement of people completely is impossible, Ednews reports through Reuters
Asked about a June EU-wide parliamentary election, in which migration is a top issue, the former Dutch border guard told Reuters that stopping irregular arrivals completely was not realistic.
"Migration is a global phenomenon. We need to manage migration because we can't cope with unmanaged migration to Europe," he said. "But a full stop - for me that seems very difficult, not to say impossible."
Frontex head Hans Leijtens spoke in his Warsaw office ahead of a trip by the EU chief executive and Spanish prime minister on Thursday to Mauritania, which has recently become a major point of departure for Europe.
