Frontex: MEPs refuse to discharge EU border agency over its management in 2020

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. MEPs refused to discharge the 2020 budgets for the European Border and Coast Guard Agency and the Council, and granted discharge to the European Economic and Social Committee. 345 MEPs voted in favour of the committee recommendation to refuse discharge to Frontex, 284 voted […]

Frontex: MEPs recommend refusing sign-off of 2020 accounts

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. Members of the Budgetary Control Committee recommend against clearing the 2020 budget for Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard agency. The EP committee refused to grant the so-called “discharge” of the 2020 budget of the EU’s border control agency, Frontex, with 12 votes […]

EU signs agreement with Moldova on Frontex cooperation

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. Today, the European Union signed a legally binding agreement with the Republic of Moldova on border management cooperation between Moldovan border guards and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). The agreement was signed on behalf of the EU by Ylva Johansson, Commissioner […]

EP asks for part of Frontex budget to be frozen until key improvements are made

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. MEPs agreed to close the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency’s accounts for 2019, but asked for part of next year’s budget to be frozen. The recommendation to grant the so-called discharge to Frontex for management of its 2019 budget received 558 votes in […]

EP committee asks for part of Frontex budget to be frozen

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. The Budget Control Committee recommended signing off on the expenses of the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency, but asked for part of the budget to be frozen. MEPs on the committee recommended granting so-called discharge to Frontex for management of its 2019 budget, […]

MEPs to grill Frontex director on agency’s role in pushbacks of asylum-seekers

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. The alleged involvement of Frontex staff in pushbacks of asylum-seekers by the Greek border guard will be the focus of a debate in the Civil Liberties Committee on Tuesday. MEPs are set to demand answers from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency’s Executive […]

Will the EU reconsider Frontex’s role in light of accusations about violations of migrants’ human rights?

The European border agency Frontex has been found to violate human rights and abuse its power to make excessive use of force and mistreat migrants according to latest research conducted by the ARD political magazine report München, the British Guardian and the search center CORRECTIV. However, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency has been denying […]

EU Border and Coast Guard: new corps of 10 000 border and coast guards by 2027

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. New measures strengthening the European Border and Coast Guard to secure the EU’s borders were agreed by Parliament and Council negotiators, on Thursday. The provisionally agreed changes to the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) aim to remedy the current shortcomings and better […]

Germany readies to pay for the Brexit gap in EU finance

As expected, last Friday’s informal European Council of the 27 EU leaders didn’t produce any tangible result regarding its main agenda item; the future of Europe. The EU leaders just quarreled on who is to cover the hole in the budget, after Britain’s contribution ends with Brexit. In relation to this perennial question of money […]

EU prepares for the worst case scenario as Turkey seems to be withdrawing from the migration deal

The EU Foreign Ministers convened in Brussels two days ago with Austria calling for a tougher stance towards the Turkish membership urging the EU to freeze negotiations due to the recent security crackdown in Turkey. The EU leaders will discuss the EU-Turkey refugee deal on Thursday which is directly linked to the Turkish accession talks. Erdogan […]

EU-Turkey deal on migrants kicked off but to who’s interest?

Last Monday, 4 April, Greece and Turkey kicked off the implementation of the EU-Turkey agreement. For migrants and refugees alike it foresees deportation from the Greek islands to Turkey, just some dangerous miles eastwards, over rough sea straights at times. Ankara is to receive from Brussels € 3+3 billion for that. During the past twelve […]

The New Year 2016 will not be benevolent to Europe

The year that just ended was rather nasty to the European Union and the New Year 2016 won’t be any better. The economic, financial and political problems culminated to the migration crisis in the second half of 2015, with Greece implicated in more than one of the abovementioned predicaments. The lagged reaction of Brussels to […]

EU to manage external borders against the will of member states; Greece to be the first target

Last Tuesday 15 December the European Commission adopted a groundbreaking proposal for the establishment of a powerful European Border and Coast Guard to ensure strong management of the Schengen area external borders and better administration of immigration flows. According to the Commission, this Guard should be able to intervene with or without the consent of […]

Unemployment and immigrants haunt the EU; who can offer relief?

On Tuesday 1st December, Eurostat the EU statistical service reminded us all that in the euro area the October unemployment rate still remained in the double digit region with 10.7%. Understandably, this is the official percentage of people without a job, while the real unemployment rate may be double that, as this newspaper has proved, […]

The refugee crisis brings to light EU’s most horrible flaws and nightmares

Last Monday, the EU Interior Ministers convened in Brussels in order to discuss about the quotas of the 120.000 refugees proposed by the European Commission (EC) but didn’t manage again to come to a common decision. Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary belong to the group of countries that are against the latter proposal which […]

EU should promote immigration as a humanitarian issue in order to provide a more permanent solution

Only a few days after the Calais migration incident, a new shipwreck just 10 miles off the coast of Libya caused the death of 25 people while there are still 200 people missing out of the 600 who were on board. The European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos in a common […]

EU seems to fail its moderate migration promises postponing them for end 2015

The European Union’s Interior Ministers convened last Monday on migration but didn’t come to the preferred outcome which was set by the EU leaders only one month ago, in June. Many EU member states opposed to the proposed, by the European Council (EC), distribution of the 40.000 asylum seekers coming from Greece and Italy within […]

Is the EU competent enough to fight human smuggling in 2015?

That the European Union is facing its big problem of exorbitant illegal immigration is not news. How can it be in a gigantic region of 28 countries spreading around the Old Continent? And most of all one of the top five coastline lengths in the world with some 70,000 km coasts bordering the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea and […]