Image via Shutterstock
A new European border force could be created to tackle the migrant crisis that saw tens of thousands of people fleeing conflict enter Europe through Greece this year.
Plans approved yesterday by the European Union would see a 2,500-strong border and coastguard corps patrolling Europe’s borders, according to the Times.
The cost of the force was reported as reaching €322 million by 2020. An already approved Frontex agency that will form part of the Corp will account for €114 million of that.
According to the Times, the move could involve armed German forces wearing blue armbands and EU insignia active in parts of Europe where memories of the Second World War are still raw.
This summer’s migrant crisis on Europe’s eastern borders has raised serious questions about Europe’s Schengen zone in which freedom of travel is allowed across borders.
According to the proposals, guards would be deployed from a base in Warsaw at three days’ notice and without permission of the member state’s government. It would also help with returning failed asylum seekers.
Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU’s migration commissioner, said: “What we are creating today is more Europe.”
However the plans were condemned as undemocratic in some quarters with Poland’s foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski calling it “incompatible with democracy”.
MEP and Conservative spokesman on European defence, Geoffrey Van Orden, said the plans was a step towards the creation of an EU coastal navy.