The European Commission launched a new partnership with Mauritania to promote legal migration and combat smuggling and human trafficking, the EU authority said on Thursday. Mauritania is also to be supported in the reception of refugees. The agreement comes amid a steep increase in the number of migrants setting off from the country in north-western Africa, setting out for Spain’s Canary Islands. According to official Spanish figures, more than 7,000 people have been counted since the beginning of the year. Most of them travelled from Africa across the open Atlantic to the islands in small, ba…