Frontexit
Europe is at war against an imaginary enemy
Frontexit
Europe is at war against an imaginary enemy
Press Release
Brussels, 11 October 2018
On 12 October, the Justice and Home Affairs Council will discuss the new reform proposal of Frontex, the European Coast Guard and Border Guard Agency, two years after the last revision of the mandate in 2016. Regardless of the criticisms concerning rights violations inherent in its activities, the agency is in the process of acquiring executive powers as well as gaining an increased role in deporting migrants from Member States and non-European countries.
The Frontexit collective reiterates its very strong concerns about this new reform and calls on the Member States and members of European Parliament to reject this legislative race, which symbolises the obsession with border control to the detriment of the rights of migrants.
The rescuers prepare for the calm days, more than the stormy ones.
On land in small towns near the Libyan coast, refugees from Africa and the Middle East are crowded into safe houses, waiting for good weather. When the sea quiets, the refugees pack onto rubber dinghies or large wooden fishing vessels and set off in the early morning toward Europe.
An average of 3,500 people have died each year while trying to make the journey to Italy from North Africa since 2014. Their vessels are overcrowded, unseaworthy, and have a near-nothing chance of making it to Europe. Most of the boats sink just 20 to 40 miles from the Libyan coast.
Read the full article by The Intercept.
The purpose of cooperation between Frontex and third countries is principally to try to minimise the number of people arriving at the EU’s borders by extending the use of EU “border management” policies, techniques and technologies to those countries. Indeed, “measures in third countries” make up the first step of the “four-tier access control model” that was part of the EU’s original concept of ‘Integrated Border Management’. The other three were “border control, control measures within the area of free movement, including return)”.
The “concept” has subsequently been extended and its current content is set out in Article 4 of the 2016 Regulation.
Read the full briefing by Statewatch here.
