Ministers Back Commission's Approach to EU Border Management

Brdo pri Kranju, 12 March

EU interior ministers have expressed support for an integrated strategic approach to the management of the EU's external borders, Commissioner Franco Frattini said after Wednesday's meeting in Brdo. According to Slovenia's Dragutin Mate, the ministers are also favourably inclined towards the Eurosur system of joint border surveillance.

Forming the basis for today's conference dealing with the challenges of managing the bloc's external borders is a package of concrete proposals the European Commission put forward on 13 February.
According to the chair of the meeting, Slovenian Interior Minister Dragutin Mate, the ministers first focused on the role of Frontex, expressing agreement that the role of the agency should become bigger. The agency should strengthen cooperation with other EU institutions, above all Europol.
European Justice Commissioner Frattini said that Frontex could initially play a central role in forming and implementing a common control of the bloc's borders, with its police duties being extended to customs control tasks. In the long run, the commissioner plans an upgrade of the system of joint police training for the monitoring of borders and the forming of joint EU units for this purpose.
The officials also discussed the introduction of new technologies. They shared the view that these must not significantly worsen "the standard of the crossing of the external borders" in the sense of causing unnecessary cues at airports and border crossings.
"Passengers with good intentions need to be enabled to cross the border smoothly," Mate recapped. Frattini added that pilot programmes for a speeding up of border crossing procedures had been introduced in London, Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam.
The ministers also backed the idea of setting up a system of electronic authorisation and the introduction of a shared electronic database for citizens of third countries entering and exiting the EU, which would upgrade the existing Schengen database and the visa information system. They were also in favour of a common automated fingerprint identification system (Eurodac).
Frattini said that the electronic entry/exit database of third countries' citizens based on biometric data would only hold information on the identity of persons who entered the bloc. This would make it easier to identify persons who continue their stay in the EU beyond the permitted period.
Frattini also touched on the system of electronic authorisation of entry into the EU, arguing the proposal of the Commission for the introduction of an electronic permit addressed the problem of red tape associated with the visa system.
Later in the day the debate focused on the Eurosur "system of all systems" for the joint surveillance of the entire EU border, which could be ready by 2015 or even a bit sooner, according to Mate.

Ministers Back Commission's Approach to EU Border Management

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