"Collaboration between Spain and France in the fight against the terrorist group ETA is vitally important for ensuring its definitive dissolution", says Juan Ignacio Zoido

The Minister for Home Affairs, Juan Ignacio Zoido, met on Tuesday morning with his French counterpart, Bruno Le Roux. This is the first bilateral meeting between the two new home affairs ministers at the headquarters of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to address issues related to the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking and dealing with cooperation on migratory issues at a European Union level, among other European issues.

During this meeting, Juan Ignacio Zoido expressed to his French counterpart, Bruno Le Roux, the excellent collaboration between France and Spain and the fluid and frequent dialogue between the two home affairs departments on counter-terrorism issues, among other matters that affect the two countries.

The Spanish Minister for Home Affairs thanked his French colleague for the excellent collaboration provided by France in the fight against ETA terrorism at a police, judicial and political level, as well as the provision to Spain of documentation and evidence by the French authorities on the movements of the terrorist group ETA that will be highly useful in resolving old cases and which could result in new arrests and charges brought against members of the terrorist group, as well as provide documentary evidence to the Centre for the Memory of Victims of Terrorism in Vitoria.

During this meeting, Juan Ignacio Zoido pointed out that collaboration in the fight against the terrorist group ETA "is vitally important for ensuring its definitive dissolution". The recent joint operations carried out by the Guardia Civil and the French Directorate-General of National Security, which have led to the arrest of important leaders of the terrorist group such as Mikel Irastorza Artola, David Pla Martín and Iratxe Sorzábal Díaz are all good evidence of this, explained Juan Ignacio Zoido, as well as locating a significant arms and explosives cache that the terrorist group ETA kept hidden in France.

Fight against Jihadi terrorism

The Minister for Home Affairs, Juan Ignacio Zoido, expressed Spain's firm commitment and support for France, and that of the Ministry of Home Affairs, to Bruno Le Roux, in maintaining and actually stepping up cooperation and exchanging information between the law enforcement agencies of the two countries in the fight against Jihadi terrorism and violent radicalisation. "I am convinced that through this cooperation we will be able to deal with this threat", said Minister Zoido.

Juan Ignacio Zoido pointed out that Spain is very committed to the fight against returning foreign Jihadi fighters. He also underlined that Spain is particularly concerned by the growing terrorist threat from the Sahel and from Libya, as well as from other conflict zones such as Syria and Iraq, where foreign fighters return from, as well as the growing threat from violent radicalisation. As a result of all of this, "we have ratified the so-called "Comprehensive International Counter-Terrorism and Radicalisation Strategy", we approved the "Strategic National Plan to Combat Violent Radicalisation", and we have developed a special programme to avoid radicalisation in prisons, which is proving to be highly successful", pointed out the Spanish Minister for Home Affairs.

Since 2004, Spain has carried out a total of 206 police operations against Jihadi terrorism and has arrested 737 terrorists. Furthermore, since 2015, the year in which Spain decided to raise its Counter-Terrorism Alert Level (Spanish acronym: NAA-4), to level 4, a total of 178 Jihadi terrorists have been arrested (144 in Spain and 34 in other countries) in 85 police operations (72 in Spain and 13 in other countries).

Fight against drug trafficking

The Ministers for Home Affairs of Spain and France also spoke about the fight against drug trafficking in Europe. They both agreed to sign up to the 2nd Three-Year Action Plan to strengthen cooperation between Spain and France in the fight against drug trafficking during the next Spain-France Summit.

Juan Ignacio Zoido stressed that the results of this 2nd Three-Year Action Plan will be "as good" as those obtained under the first plan, in which 652 individuals were arrested; 85 tonnes of hashish and 7.5 tonnes of cocaine were seized; assets were seized for a value of almost 14 million euros and 53 million euros were confiscated through the investigation and localisation of assets.

Cooperation with France on migratory issues at a EU level

Juan Ignacio Zoido considers - and he passed this on to the French Minister for Foreign Affairs - that Spain and France can and should support each other at a European level since they share the same position on many of the issues of current migratory affairs.

Juan Ignacio Zoido and Bruno Le Roux underlined the need to strengthen the foreign dimension of the migratory policy of the European Union through cooperation with third countries and the new partnership framework. The two ministers agreed that they should maintain a positive and constructive attitude to create a genuine strategic association on migration with our neighbours on the African continent. In short, "we must design a true "European Union Marshall Plan for Africa", said Juan Ignacio Zoido.

Finally, the two ministers shared their interest in demonstrating their solidarity with those Member States that are subject to strong pressure from asylum-seekers on their external borders.

"We believe that Spain and France together can mutually support each other in developing specific operational projects on the ground as we have done in such projects as the Rapid Action Groups in the Sahel and the Joint Investigation Team in Niger, among others", declared the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Juan Ignacio Zoido.