France, UK Sign Declaration on Center to Ease Refugee Smuggling in Calais

France and the United Kingdom signed on Thursday a declaration to increase security and counter refugee smugglers in continued efforts to ease a refugee crisis in the French port of Calais, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The agreement stipulates that UK police and border guards will work with French officers at a new control center in the city to counter smugglers transporting undocumented immigrants to the United Kingdom.

"We have decided with [UK Home Secretary] Theresa May to further strengthen our cooperation in security and fight against criminal networks, as well as to expand [the cooperation] to new areas concerning certain humanitarian aspects of receiving migrants," Cazeneuve said, as quoted in a press release on the joint declaration.

The center will be headed by senior UK and French officers to enable greater cooperation between the countries.

In recent weeks, there have been thousands of attempts by refugees to cross the 31-mile tunnel from the French town of Coquelles, near Calais, to Folkestone, Kent, in the United Kingdom.

The crisis in Calais is a high-profile symptom of the European Union struggle with a massive influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing violence in their home countries in the Middle East and North Africa.