Turkey relaunches EU bid as part of migrant deal
Turkey relaunches EU bid as part of migrant deal
The EU unveiled plans Tuesday for a new border and Coast Guard agency that can intervene even without the host country’s consent, saying it had to restore security threatened by the migration crisis.
The new force will have a “standing reserve” of 1,500 border guards who can be quickly deployed, unlike the current Frontex agency which relies on asking member states for contributions, it said.
“We cannot exclude that there will still be exceptional situations where a member state is for whichever reason unable to cope with a situation on its own,” European Commission vice- president Frans Timmermans said.
“In such rare cases the agency must be able to quickly step in and assume the management of that specific part of the shared external border,” he told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
“This is a safety net which, like all safety nets, we hope will never need to be used. But it is essential to restore the credibility of our border management system.” Nearly one million refugees and migrants have crossed Europe’s borders in 2015, mostly people fleeing the war in Syria. The majority have come to Greece on the short sea crossing from Turkey.
Meanwhile, Turkey and the EU officially launched a new stage in Ankara’s long-stalled membership bid on Monday as part of a deal aimed at tackling the migration crisis.
Foreign ministers from the bloc approved a new “chapter”, focusing on economic and monetary policy, of Turkey's decade-long accession process to join the EU.
Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the opening of the first new section for two years was “quite symbolic” and would help tackle issues such as migration and terrorism.
“We hope other chapters will be opened soon and the negotiations process returns to its natural course. We shouldn't wait another two years to open another chapter,” Mr Cavusoglu told a press conference in Brussels.
Elsewhere in Germany, the government said the proportion of people entering the country with fake Syrian passports is far less than the 30 per cent announced by the interior minister in September. Germany has to date maintained an open-door policy for Syrians, escaping their country.
