BELGIUM: Rapid reponse force of border guards proposed by European Union executive to deal with sudden influxes of illegal immigrants

The European Union (EU) should create a rapid response force of border guards who can be sent to member states to help cope with sudden influxes of illegal migrants, the EU executive proposed on Wednesday (July 19) The proposal comes after Spain's Canary Islands and Malta asked other EU states for boats and experts to help them deal with a rising number of illegal arrivals aboard rickety boats. "Our plan is to have at our disposal of (at) frontiers a European instrument, a permanent team of about 250 fifty to 300 people from member states which will be able to intervene very quickly on request of a member state after only ten working days after the request," the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, Franco Frattini, told journalists at a media conference in Brussels. Under the proposal, border guards could assist EU states faced by large flows of migrants by checking travel documents and searching vehicles, as well as by taking part in sea patrols, stopping illegal crossings and interviewing migrants. The guards could carry weapons if a country they came to help agreed to it, and would wear blue armbands with the EU insignia. "We talk about, I think, dealing with urgent needs from member states and I repeat in terms of interoperates, first aid and something like that. Not in terms of improving capacities of national police to arrest people. since national police are ready to do that alone. We talk about expertise where there is lack of national capability. In that case rapid intervention team will intervene," Frattini concluded They would work under the authority of the border guard force they come to help. More than 10,000 migrants have arrived in the Canaries so far this year, more than twice the figure of the whole 2005. Flows of illegal migrants have created tensions among EU states. For example, Malta recently refused permission for a Spanish trawler which rescued 50 migrants close to Libya to land in its port. Last week EU and African ministers vowed at a conference in Rabat to work on a balanced approach promoting legal migration and development as well as fighting illegal migration, but Wednesday's proposals focused only on police measures. The proposal is to be discussed and adopted by EU justice ministers and the European Parliament.

ITN Source | July 20, 2006

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