Brussels, 01/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 31 March, new Executive Director of Frontex, Fabrice Leggeri, from France, set out for MEPs at the civil liberties and home affairs committee at the European Parliament his organisation's 2015 work programme along with some statistics for 2014, a “record year” in terms of illegal EU border crossings, with 283,000 people crossing the border illegally.
Leggeri said that the main groups of migrants arriving in the EU illegally were Syrians and Eritreans. He informed MEPs that a Frontex Agency representative would soon be in post in Turkey to develop bilateral EU-Turkey cooperation, and also cooperation between Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria. Discussions on this Frontex representative are currently ongoing between the Commission, European External Action Service (EEAS) and Turkey. Leggeri also indicated that, since the beginning of the year, cooperation with Turkey had include putting in place the Eurosur system, the satellite image programme that helps detect suspect vessels, and cooperation with Europol. The Frontex director also highlighted the need to support at sea search and rescue activities by member states but did not broach the issue of the agency's mandate.
On a completely different note, Leggeri said that, so far, there has been “no proof at all” that combatants from Islamic State had managed to get into the EU by posing as ordinary migrants. (Solenn Paulic)