Germany and France have asked the European Commission to strengthen the European border protection agency Frontex, according to German media.
According to a report in Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, the two countries’ interior ministers have sent a letter to European Immigration and Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos asking the EU’s executive to modify Schengen rules and grant the agency powers to step in and guard a member-state’s external frontier in cases of emergency – even without prior invitation from the state in question.
Operational plan finalisation
Frontex officers will be deployed at Greece’s border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) next week in order to assist in the registration and fingerprinting of refugees and various third country migrants arriving there, European Commission spokeswoman on migration issues Natasha Bertaud said today.
“On Friday we had confirmation of two things from Greece: one was the finalisation of the operational plan with Frontex to deploy agents at the land border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) – this as of next week,” Bertaud said in response to an question posed by the ANA-MPA. She also noted that it would be Frontex who decided and “tell us the exact number of people to be deployed.”
The EU Commission intends to present a legislative proposal for the strengthening of Frontex on 15 December.
