Brussels pushes for EU coastguard-borders agency

The European Commission pushed Friday for a new 1,000-strong EU force to slow the record flow of migrants across the EU's external borders but faced opposition from some member states hostile to giving Brussels this sovereign right.
Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European Commissioner in charge of migration policy, told a Mediterranean security conference in Rome that national authorities had been overwhelmed by the unprecedented numbers of asylum seekers and other migrants arriving in Europe, creating the need for a pan-European solution.

"National authorities manage to do their best but they were not prepared," Avramopoulos said. "We need something more comprehensive and better structured."

He said a new agency's tasks would include defending and protecting EU borders, providing migrants with support and carrying out search and rescue operations.

It would have a staff of around 1,000 and be authorised to intervene whenever national authorities could not meet their responsibilities for border security, Avramopolous added.

The Commission, the executive arm of the 28-nation European Union, is pushing to secure the bloc's external land and sea borders as a way to save the passport-free Schengen zone.
Germany and other countries in the zone have in the last few weeks reintroduced temporary border controls to cope with the worst migrant crisis since World War II.

The fear is that if those controls become permanent, the Schengen zone which ensures the EU's core principle of freedom of movement, would collapse, taking the idea of a single, united Europe with it.

- 'Hoping for swift progress' -

The Commission is confident a summit of EU leaders in Brussels next Thursday and Friday "will encourage us to progress swiftly on preparation of a European border and coastguard agency," Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas told a press conference.

But a Polish source told AFP on condition of anonymity that "Poland is pretty much objecting to the very idea of such a border guard
"It would remove responsibility for protecting borders from a member state and might serve as an alibi for inaction."

Border control involves not just checks but "investigations, arrests and tasks done on behalf of other services," the Polish source said.

"The proposal seems to be an excessive intervention in the internal competences of a state," he added.

Avramopoulos said the border force would work closely with planned European reception centres, or 'hotspots', being established in Greece and Italy to ensure more comprehensive identification, registration and processing of new arrivals in Europe.

"Nobody would ever come into EU territory without accepting to respect the rules of our union," he said.
A European diplomat told AFP the hotspots have already broken taboos on national sovereignty as they involve staff from other member states.

"That's more or less what's happening at the moment and therefore the Commission thinks that they should go one step further by proposing these coast guards as a way of improving our act," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

The ease with which migrants can enter Europe without being identified has become a hot-button issue in the wake of last month's Paris attacks following reports two of the attackers passed through Greece posing as refugees.

Brussels has initiated infringement proceedings against Greece and Italy -- where the bulk of refugees arrive -- over their failure to comply with EU rules which require them to fingerprint every migrant entering the bloc via their territory.

The proposal for a new force will be announced Tuesday and will require approval by the European Parliament and national governments.

"We need it. We have found out that we are in real need of having this agency up and running as soon as possible and on the ground," Avramopoulos said.

Source: AFP