Debate with MEPs: New plans for a permanent EU external border force

Plans to strengthen the EU border agency Frontex and take steps towards setting up a European border and coast guard that in urgent cases could be deployed even without the approval of the country concerned will be presented by Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans and debated by MEPs in plenary session on Tuesday (16 December) at 15h.

Plans to beef up EU external border management rules and resources were announced by the Commission in the European Agenda on Migration, presented on 13 May 2015.

MEPs had previously called on the Council and Commission to consider establishing an EU coast guard, for instance, in an October 2013 resolution on migratory flows in the Mediterranean. On 2 April 2014, Parliament also said that "the Schengen external borders should in the future be guarded with the support of European border guards whose training includes human rights standards".

In a resolution approved on 2 December 2015, they also asked the Commission to include provisions on a mechanism to process individual complaints about alleged breaches of the fundamental rights of migrants and asylum seekers in the upcoming review of the Frontex regulation.

The new Commission proposals are expected to say, inter alia, that:

• Frontex should become a European border and coast guard agency,

• which, with its own 1,500-2,000 own staff and equipment, would no longer have to rely entirely upon member states’ contributions, and

• could, in urgent cases, deploy agents even without the approval of the country concerned (the EU Commission would decide on their deployment after consulting member states).
  

You can watch the plenary debate via EP Live, and EbS+.

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