The European Union is set
to take itslargest step in Europeanintegration to date with the
creation of the
European Border and Coast Guard which will
replace Frontex and have new powers, including the rightto deploy intervention
forces if the integrityof the Schengen borders are considered to be at
risk.Between January and November 2015 an estimated 1.5 million
peopleentered the EUillegally.This figure represents an
all-time peak in European Union history.
According to EU officials
and documents seen by New Europe, the European Border and Coast Guard will run
under a new EU agency tentativelynamed the
European
Border Agency
,which is set to have double the
budget, more than double the staff of
Frontex,and a pool
of at least 1500 on-call field operatives which EU member states will make
available within three days of requests. The European Commission will share the
proposals with the European Council and European Parliament on Tuesday, 15
December.
The EU finds itself with
the refugee crisis, reliving a parallel with September 2010, when EU member
countries realised that national tools at their disposal were not enough to
fight the financial crisis. The European Banking Union, a single supervisory mechanism
to oversee the national banking supervisory authorities, was born to tackle at
a collective level what EU member states were powerless to take on alone. Similarly,
with even resistant Greece activating three EU emergency mechanisms last week,
the refugee crisis is not only one which individual countries cannot handle
alone, but one which the EU apparatus is no longer sufficient. The
European
Border Agency will encompassthe necessary mechanisms to be able to
deal with the refugee crisis on a collective level, with most EU heads of state
in the last months reminding each-other that the crisis is one which cannot be
dealt with by any one country alone.
European Commission First
Vice-President,
Frans Timmermans, told New Europe that:
“
Managing the EU’s
external borders is a collective European responsibility we all share. We need
to help frontline Member States address crisis situations and we need the
instruments to deal with them more effectively . That is why the European
Commission will propose to establish a European Border and Coast Guard – with a
much broader mandate than the current EU border agency, Frontex – which plays
an essentially coordinating role – andaccess to a reserve pool of border
guards and technical equipment. Secure external borders are what allow us to
maintain an area of free movement in the EU.”
Addressing the
limitations ofFrontex
The European Commission is
seeking to abolish Frontex and replace it with a new and improved European
Border and Coast Guard. This will be a new regulation, and not an amendment to
the existing regulation. The limitations of Frontex were found to be such that
it was not possible to simply amend it. Frontex is solely a coordination
mechanism, not even able to purchase its own equipment.
Saving lives at sea
When Frontex was instituted
the refugee and migrant influx was stable and manageable. As such, Frontex had
no search and rescue mandate. In Lampedusa for example, where hundreds of lives
were lost, Frontex could only participate in joint operations which were
limited to border surveillance. With the EU seeing thousands in boats crossing
the borders in inhumane conditions and using travel means that are not safe,
Frontex could only save drowning people if they came across them by chance as is
foreseen by the law of the sea.
European Border and
Coast Guard to get more staff and on-callagents
Frontex had 300 permanent
staff at the start of 2015, and this grew to 400 as the refugee crisis was
amplified. However the staff consists primarily desk officers. Field operatives
were only made available to Frontex througha shared pool of member state
resources. 775 such agents were requested to assist in
Greece
and
Hungary
earlier this year, yet to date only
447 have been offered by other countries.
EU Sources told the new
European Border and Coast Guard will have a permanent staff size of 1000. Member
States will also asked to commit at least 1500 field agents to a reserve pool. These
field agents will have to be deployed within 3 days of being requested by the
EU’s
Border Agency. In the field, agents’ uniform will include the EU
flag as to distinguish and make them identifiable to operatives from other
national and international agencies that may be involved.
The reserve pool of the
readily available agents will also apply to machinery with member states also
committing necessary equipment to a reserve pool. Beyond the pool, the new
agency will also have purchasing power, meaning that it can have its own fleet
of boats, helicopters, patrol vehicles, but also the necessary finger printing
machines.
Greece
is still struggling to find 50 of
these Eurodac machines necessary for the refugee hotspots.
A new role in
return operations with the European Return Office
Currently one of the
biggest challenges in the refugee crisis is returning individuals to their
countries of origin when they do not qualify for asylum. Frontex has a very
limited role in return operations, currently only coordinating and finding
opportunities for efficient operations between member states who may be looking
to send back people to the same countries. Frontex then helps coordinate the
operation so that it, on the whole, is both cheaper, and more efficient.
The European Return Office
will be part of the
European Border Agency, and will have the ability
to deploy rapid return forces composed of specialists in return policy and
implementation. These teams will be able to run their own return operations and
their own return flights. This is particularly important for hotspots where the
mass influx of people often means that the authorities do not have the capacity
to carry out returns of people who have had their asylum applications rejected.
A harmonised EU
return document
For the first time, the EU
will also geta harmonised European document for return. This document
will be integrated with the readmission agreements that are made with third
countries on the European level. This document will guarantee that the third
countries will no longer have any legal or administrative basis not
toaccept returns of people accompanied by the EU return document.
The document will also be
able to be used for bilateral agreements of member states and third countries
oncethese agreementsare amended to take this into account.
Greece
for example saw a flight hired and
coordinated by Frontexcarrying49Pakistani nationals who did
not qualify for asylum, returned from
Greece
, only to besent back with
30of the 49because the Pakistani authorities did not accept the
travel documents as valid and as such did not allow them to disembark.This
is the type of situation that the European travel document seeks to resolve.
EU’s Border Agency
to have ability to assist countries outside the EU
Frontex cannot, according
to the regulation which rules its operation, cannot operate in
thirdcountries. With one of Europe’s biggest problems being a route
through the western balkans which creates additional stress on the national
resources of non-EU countries like Serbia, Albania, and the Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia, the new
Border Agency will be able to also
carry out operations in neighbouring countries, but only at their request.
Deficiencies at the
external border
Another problem with
Frontex at the moment is that its agents don’t have security clearance to
access databases such as Europol, Interpol, and other databases which could
help them guarantee the safety of the EU’s border against criminals and
terrorists. The agents of the
European Border Agency will have
the necessary accessto make
Europe
’s borders safer from such threats.
Furthermore, where
necessary, one or more liaison officers will be embedded into national
ministries in order to be able to relay information to the
European Border
Agency in real time. These liaison officers can also be embedded in non-EU
countries if such a request is made by the country and accepted.
In this way, the agency
will use feedback to carry out constant risk analysis in order to prevent
crisesbased on the information that the liaison officers provide. The
EU’s
Border Agency will, when necessary recommend corrective actions
to the member state, or suggest the use of rapid border intervention teams.
EUto have the
right protect the Schengen border on its own initiative
The most bold part of the
proposal for a
European Border Agency is to give the agency the right
to intervene if the integrity of the external Schengen border is considered to
be at risk. The agency will even be able to intervene even if a member state
does not request it, or, more importantly, even if the member state does not
agree that they need any intervention.
While this is not expected
to happen, as it would raise intra EU tension, the mechanism to make this
happen is under the comitology examination procedure where a European
Commission chaired committee of 28 member state experts can only block the
decision with a reverse qualified majority.
Countries like
Greece
have long called for the European
Union to look at the external borders as a collective responsibility. For the
first time, The
European Border Agencysets Union-wide standards
for border management and sees a common approach to protecting the EU’s
borders.
The origins of the
European Border and Coast Guard
The European Border and
Coast Guard was proposed by the European Commission President, Jean-Claude
Juncker, inhis state of the union addresson
September
9, 2015
. Momentum
for such a body started to build after a European Parliament resolution called
for a system of integrated border management. An informal EU Council on 23
September and formal EU Council of 15 October also concluded that the EU needs
an integrated border management system at the external borders.
Most recently on Thursday,
French interior Minister
Bernard Cazeneuve, and German Federal
MInister of the Interior,
Thomas de Maizière, sent a joint letter
to European Commissioner for Migration and Home Affairs,
Dimitris
Avramopoulos, outlining details of what they would like to see in an
integrated border management system.
Interior ministers are
usually the last line of defense when it comes to member states who seek to
keep as much intervention power as possible at the national level, and the
letter of the two ministers shows that the EU has seen that the border
management and control can only be done efficiently and effectively if tackled
at a collective level.
The
European Border
Agency and its European Border and Coast Guard are the bodies that, if
finalised and implemented, will be European response that will save the Schengen
area. It will also be the boldest step in European integration in the Union’s
history; a step that is unquestionably necessary not to strengthen the European
Union’s core, but to protect the integrity of its 28 member states.
http://neurope.eu/article/european-border-agency-eu-to-get-centralised-powers-to-secure-its-borders/