The first European border police officers are expected to arrive in 2020.
In the spring of 2020, when Croatia will chair the Council of the European Union, in addition to the entry to the Schengen Area, which is part of the government’s ambitious plan, there could be another major change on Croatian borders. European border police force could arrive to protect Croatia’s eastern borders, which are also external borders of the European Union, reports Večernji List on September 11, 2018.
This idea, the establishment of the European border and coast guard with 10,000 armed members ready for deployment on the external borders, but also with the authority to operate in third countries outside the EU if these countries allow it (for example, in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina), is expected to be presented by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in his State of the European Union Speech in Strasbourg.
According to Brussels sources, Juncker wants the European border guards to be ready for deployment by 2020, which is an accelerated deadline compared to other plans which have been mentioned so far.
There is currently no European border guard force. Instead, each member state has its own border guards, and the European regulations allow for a maximum of 1,500 national border guards to be mobilized and sent to common European missions. In the future, however, there would be the European border guard force with 10,000 members, their powers would be much greater, and their deployment much faster and more frequent. These new European border guards would have the authority to prevent unauthorized migrants from crossing from one EU country to another and to return rejected asylum-seekers to non-EU countries from which they arrived.
Traditionally, member states were skeptical of such an idea because the protection of borders is an important part of state sovereignty and countries were not inclined to transfer to the EU level such very valuable aspect of national authority. They did not want to create an opportunity for European border guards to come to their borders, in some cases perhaps even against the will of national governments. But, the migration crisis has changed this traditionally cautious attitude of member states.
For Croatia, it is important that the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) receives powers to operate outside the EU territory, for example in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, where migrants gather before attempting to illegally enter Croatia. Juncker’s proposal, which is yet to be agreed upon and adopted by the EU Council and the European Parliament, could go in that direction.
The new structure of the European border guard force should formally be presented next week at a Vienna meeting, which will be followed by a debate on the proposal to amend the existing regulation, which would increase the number of police officers from 1,500 to 10,000. If the proposal is accepted, the number of police officers from each country would have to increase. At this moment, Croatia has an obligation to take part in Frontex with 65 border police officers.
For now, Croatia has not sought the help of European police forces to protect its borders, and it is not likely to do so because, according to Interior Minister Davor Božinović, it is capable of handling potential problems.
Croatia has about 6,500 border police officers and is increasingly investing in border surveillance equipment. By the end of this year, it is expected to buy another 60 off-road vehicles and 60 thermal hand-held cameras, as well as stationary cameras which will be set at the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. The work of Croatian police has recently been praised by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said that “the activities of the Croatian police at the external borders of the European Union prove that Croatia has made progress and is doing its job well in the protection of external borders.”
Translated from Večernji List (reported by Marina Borovac and Tomislav Krasnec).
