Yvette Cooper is to host European allies for talks on immigration crime and security in the Western Balkans as the Government searches for ways to curb the rise in small boat crossings.
The UK will promise funding for strengthened border security and law enforcement training in Kosovo as well as support to bolster cyber defences against the threat of interference from Russia in the region.
The Foreign Secretary will meet partners from countries including Albania, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as European allies such as France, Germany and Italy on Thursday.
At the gathering at Hillsborough Castle – the backdrop for the Good Friday Agreement – Ms Cooper will announce £4 million in funding to help combat Russian threats aimed at “destabilising the region” and “fanning ethnic tensions,” the Foreign Office said.
Ahead of the meeting, the Foreign Secretary will also announce £10 million investment for schemes aimed at tackling people-smuggling in the Western Balkans and other key regions.
Meanwhile, Foreign Office staff are being redeployed to focus more heavily on migration, including on “progressing negotiations with other countries” to return people with no right to remain in Britain, the department said.
The Western Balkans is a key transit route through which migrants travel to the European Union and UK, accounting for almost 22,000 irregular border crossings in the continent recorded last year, according to the Foreign Office.
Ms Cooper said: “It is in all our interests to protect security and stability in the Western Balkans, and we must be alive to the full range of threats that our partners in the region are facing, from Russian efforts to revive ethnic tensions, to vile people-smuggling gangs trading in human lives.
“International co-operation is vital to boosting our economic growth, protecting our national security, and securing our borders. The partnerships we build abroad make us stronger here at home.
“In particular, the support that we are giving our partners in the Western Balkans to tackle people smuggling will have a direct impact on the supply chains and profits of organised immigration crime networks, and reducing the threat that they represent to the UK.”
It comes as the Government struggles to curb the number of people crossing the English Channel by small boat, which has reached 34,401 this year.
This puts 2025 on course to break the record for most arrivals in a single year, according to PA news agency analysis of Home Office figures.
A “one in, one out” migration deal brokered with France earlier this year has seen 18 people returned after making the journey.
