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New EU Border Force Aims to Curb Migrant Crisis

by Henry Ridgwell

   LONDON --

   Following the influx of millions of migrants and refugees in recent
   years, the European Union has launched a task force charged with
   securing the bloc's external frontiers. A ceremony at the Kapitan
   Andreevo Border Checkpoint on Bulgaria's border with Turkey -- the far
   eastern edge of the EU -- marked the official launch of the European
   Border and Coast Guard Agency on Thursday.

   Newly assigned EBCG border guards in bright blue uniforms demonstrated
   state-of-the-art surveillance equipment purchased with the increased
   budget.

   The bloc's commissioner for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, hailed
   the agency as an unprecedented achievement of the union.

   "Today is a milestone in the history of European border management,"
   [1]he said in prepared remarks. "From now onwards, the external EU
   border of one member state is the external border of all member states,
   both legally and operationally."

   It "has now become a reality in less than nine months since the
   European Commission proposed it," Avramopoulos added. "The European
   citizens have demanded, and they rightly do so, a tangible European
   response -- and today we deliver it collectively."

   EU Commissioner of Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos poses for a picture
   with border police from Finland during the official launch of the
   European Union's Border and Coast Guard Agency at a border crossing on
   the Bulgarian-Turkish border in Kapitan Andreev

   Beefed-up border efforts

   Permanent staff at the revamped agency -- previously known as Frontex
   -- is expected to double in size, to 1,000, by the decade's end, and a
   reserve pool of 1,500 border guards will be available for rapid
   deployment.

   The agency will bolster security, testing vulnerabilities and trying to
   shore up any weaknesses at external borders "before a crisis hits,"
   Agence France-Presse reported EBCG director Fabrice Leggeri as saying
   at the agency's inauguration.

   The EBCG also will help repatriate migrants.

   European leaders hope a more secure external border will relieve the
   pressure on the internal passport-free Schengen zone, which allows EU
   citizens to travel freely across borders in 26 countries. Several
   states have re-imposed border controls in recent months to try to stem
   the flow of migrants.

   Well-off countries criticized

   Critics say Europe is shirking its responsibilities.

   "Still, those top countries who earn the most, who have the highest GDP
   in the world, host '¦ less than 10 percent of the world's refugees,"
   said Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty International's deputy director for
   Europe. "That needs to shift, and no border guard is going to make that
   happen. That's going to require political will and some durable
   solutions."

   More than 300,000 migrants have arrived in Europe so far in 2016. Flows
   from Turkey have decreased since the EU struck a deal with Ankara in
   March to return all migrants who try to cross into Europe illegally.

   Van Gulik said the EU's leaders are outsourcing Europe's asylum policy.

   "They're leaving it up to Turkey to host millions of refugees, they're
   leaving it up to the very borders of Europe -- so mostly Greece and
   also Italy now -- to host refugees," she said. "And it means that
   people are stuck in the most horrendous conditions."

   EU officials insist the border agency will respect fundamental human
   and refugee rights, but they say the bloc must regain control of its
   external frontiers to avert another crisis.

References

   1. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-3281_en.htm