EU agency reports drop in migrants to Greece

As regards the Commission’s proposal to strengthen the Schengen Border Code, Juncker said that every person entering the Schengen area – whether they are an EU national or a third country national – will undergo a security check against national and European databases.

“The agency will be empowered to require member states to take corrective measures”.

A plan by the European Union to create a cross-national border police to deal with refugees is causing concern in some European governments.

The Commissioner responsible for migration says that the new European Border and Coast Guard Agency will have more powers than its predecessor.

Most importantly, the commission wants to allow national coastguards to be part of the European border and coast guard giving them the capacity to carry out border control tasks.

The proposed checks will apply to all people entering or exiting the Schengen area of passport-free travel in order to verify that persons arriving do not represent a threat to public order and internal security.

However, the plan, which aims to give the new border agency a stronger mandate than the EU’s current Frontex border teams, is facing growing opposition from many within the 28-nation bloc. The country where number of applications have increased year-on-year by 60 percent, and monthly applications doubled between August and September 2015, with a further 60 percent increase in October 2015.

The new agency will be staffed by 1,000 people as well as a minimum of 1,500 standby border guards who can be deployed within three days from member states.

About 1.7 million European Union citizens cross borders daily in the Schengen zone to go to work, the Bruegel think-tank reports.

European Commission first vice-president Frans Timmermans said managing Europe’s external borders “must be a shared responsibility” and that “it is now time to move to a truly integrated system of border management”.

Germany and other countries in the zone have in the last few weeks reintroduced temporary border controls to cope with the migrant crisis.

But such an approach had met with criticism in eastern European countries on Monday, with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto calling it inappropriate and his Polish counterpart, Witold Waszczykowski, saying that it was “undemocratic”.

However, the proposal needs to be first approved by the European Parliament before it can be implemented, and countries like Greece have already signaled hesitation regarding the EU-wide defense policy. Greece and Italy have for months been overwhelmed by the tens of thousands of migrants arriving by land and sea – mostly by sea – escaping the war-torn Middle East and poverty and criminality in Africa.

The proposal raises both sovereignty issues and alarms rights groups that caution Europe not to militarize its borders with human rights playing second fiddle.

A family disembarks from a boat of Frontex, European Border Protection Agency, at the port town of Petra, on the Greek island of Lesbos, on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015.