Boosting Frontex is a key element in the EU’s response to the flood of refugees from the Middle East and Asia which have grown into Europe’s worst migration crisis since World War Two.
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In a statement released during their summit in Brussels, the leaders tasked European Union ministers to “rapidly examine” the scheme and to rule on its future by June 30 at the latest, side-stepping a potentially divisive debate on Thursday over the issue.
The meeting, held at the Austrian embassy in Brussels before a broader EU summit, was attended by almost a dozen European leaders, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is counting on Ankara to stem the flow of hundreds thousands of Syrians from Turkey into Greece and onward to Germany and other EU countries. “Border protection is and should be in the first place the domain of national states”, he said.
“Europe can not remain vulnerable when Schengen states are not able to effectively protect their borders”, he told reporters.
Defending Frontex’s new powers to send border guards to a country even without invitation, he said Frontex would not decide on such action by itself but have to get the green light from the European Commission Highlighting difficulties in receiving resources from the 28 EU countries, Frenchman Leggeri said that out of the 775 additional border guards he called for in early October, he had so far got around 450.
“This meeting was very good”, Merkel said, noting that ongoing talks with Turkey would focus on how to “strongly and significantly reduce” illegal migration as well as a mechanism for legal migration through voluntary quotas. European Union heads of state meet Thursday to discuss, among other issues, the current migration crisis and terrorism. Some 770,000 migrants have landed in Greece alone, a lot of them arriving from Turkey.
With pressure building on nations further north – preferred migrant destinations like Germany or Sweden – the EU’s executive arm has floated the border and coast guard plane to force Greece to act.
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Within this framework, the European Fisheries Control Agency will contribute substantially to improving border control: by sharing information, assets and intelligence with the new European Border and Coast Guard Agency and with the European Maritime Safety Agency. “Imagining the EBCG as some sort of invading army that swoops in to take over Europe’s border control is a recipe for failure”, he said. “Ensuring access to asylum is an obligation, not an option.” said Iverna McGowan, Acting Director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office.
