The UK and Germany agreed on Tuesday to a new joint action plan to tackle people-smuggling. The plan aims to “fight to save lives in the [English] Channel and disrupt the migrant smuggling trade.” It will provide a joint framework between the two countries, which “strengthens operational capabilities of UK and German law enforcement” to tackle migrant smuggling.

The Home Office announced that German authorities would now “clarify their law” to make people smuggling from Germany to non-EU third countries a specific criminal offense. Since Brexit, people-smuggling from Germany to the UK has, according to the BBC, fallen under a legal loophole with the UK no longer being a member of the EU. The British government said:

Germany confirmed its intention to clarify their law to strengthen the ability of law enforcement to tackle people smuggling gangs – by making it a criminal offence to facilitate the smuggling of migrants to the UK and giving German prosecutors more tools to tackle the supply and storage of dangerous small boats equipment. This will ensure the UK and Germany can counter the continually evolving tactics of people smuggling gangs.  

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser stated in a press release, “Together, we are now taking even stronger action against this unscrupulous business of exploiting people’s needs.” The UK Home Office described the plan as a “first-of-its-kind agreement.”

Last month, during an interview with The Sun, the Director General of the UK’s National Crime Agency, Graeme Biggar, suggested, “We have to operate with the laws that exist in all the countries that we work with and we have to have respect for their different systems … It’s obviously a matter for the German government to decide but from our point of view a law change would be helpful.”

The International Organization for Migration reports that over 250 people died attempting to reach the UK from 2014-2024.