EU presents new border plan to stem migrant influx

It follows the announcement from European Union president Jean-Claude Juncker in September of the intention to launch The European Border and Coast Guard Agency to better protect Europe’s maritime and land borders.

Manning the border will be a new agency built from Frontex and member states’ staff. It will more than double Frontex’s numbers and be able to draw on reserves of staff and equipment within three days, eliminating the possibility of shortages, the commission said.

Amid a refugees crisis considered the worse since the World War II, some States such as Germany and Austria made a decision to re-establish border controls temporarily, in order to limit the entry of people from overseas.

Some Italian lawmakers have chafed at the idea of giving up a measure of sovereignty to a broader European force, and imposing force on migrants and refugees.

The European agency will play a role in expelling migrants deemed ineligible to enter Europe, and to issue new ID cards to prevent them from trying again. Most strikingly, it would be given the power to intervene in a country whether the member state liked it or not.

Almost one billion refugees and migrants crossed European borders this year, mainly fleeing wartorn Syria.

Frontex has said the slowdown was because of worsening weather conditions and the EU’s tightening of border controls.

Frontex, the agency tasked with helping to maintain the zones external security, would be absorbed into a central organisation that also incorporates member states individual border authorities.

Lithuania, EU’s eastern border country, was among those urging the EU to strengthen the security of the EU’s external borders amid the refugee crisis and Paris attacks.

“We can not exclude that there will still be exceptional situations where a member state is for whichever reason unable to cope with a situation on its own”, the European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said.

The new agency will work alongside member states’ border control services and even non-EU border teams, according to the proposals.

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”.

The proposal for a new European coast guard, though backed by large member states such as Germany, France and Italy, is controversial, as it is perceived by some countries as an intrusion by Brussels into matters of national sovereignty. “Without it, Schengen is finished”, he said, adding that European Union countries that rejected the plan should be ejected from Schengen. “It is created to punish member states that take in refugees”. The proposal is believed to help deal with migration flows in a more effective way and thus improve the internal security in the European Union and safeguard the right of European Union nationals to move freely within the Schengen zone.