Rishi Sunak is on the verge of securing an agreement for cooperation between the UK and the EU’s border protection agency, Frontex in a further sign of thawing post-Brexit relations.
The deal is expected to mirror other agreements Frontex has with “third country” states, including one with Albania, which agreed to renew its 2019 accord.
It would lead to the sharing of intelligence of migration trends but would not address the small boats crisis involving people crossing the Channel by irregular means.
Sources say the pact will be discussed next week by the Frontex management board, which meets about six times a year. The deal could be signed this month.
A spokesperson for Sunak said negotiations were taking place and the text of a deal had not been agreed. “Obviously we hope to achieve a deal that works for us and our European neighbours,” the spokesperson said.
A Frontex agreement, albeit limited in scope, would be the third move by Sunak as prime minister to repair day-to-day practical relations between the EU and the UK.
In February he and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, came to an agreement to resolve the row over the post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland, with significant compromises by Brussels.
The Windsor agreement cleared the way for the UK’s return to the €85bn (£73bn) Horizon science research programme which was agreed last week to a jubilant response from the science and academic communities.
Relations between Sunak and Von der Leyen are said to be flourishing and sources said the Horizon deal underlined a welcome pragmatism from Downing Street.
Government sources said they believed the normalisation of relations would “unlock” the Frontex deal but emphasised there was nothing in the agreement that would address the small boats crisis or Suella Braverman’s desire to return irregular migrants to mainland Europe.
There are also reservations at the EU about Braverman’s wish to leave the European convention on human rights, which could put at risk the chapter on policing in the 2020 trade and cooperation agreement.
If the UK left the ECHR, the EU could pull the plug on the policing chapter, ending the sharing of DNA data, criminal records and fingerprint databases.
The justice and home affairs committee in the House of Lords has already written to Braverman to express concern that the new illegal migration legislation could lead to the “termination and/or suspension” of the security cooperation elements of the trade deal.
