Brussels, 28/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday evening 26 May, the Frontex Agency presented the new Triton mission's plan of operations. Triton was launched last November as a follow-up to Mare Nostrum and, according to an Agency press release, has extended its area of operations. According to the Commission, this extension will enable Triton to cover the same area as that covered by Mare Nostrum.
Operation Triton will extend to 138 nautical miles south of Sicily and will have additional material and human resources. The Agency said that, during the peak summer season, Triton will deploy 3 planes, 6 offshore patrol ships, 12 patrol boats, 9 officials for interviewing migrants (to obtain information about traffickers) and 6 staff members involved in identifying those that require protection.
Executive Director of the Agency Fabrice Leggeri stated: “We have considerably increased deployment levels in the central Mediterranean to support the Italian authorities control its maritime borders and save lives; too many lives have already tragically been lost this year”.
The European Commission will soon provide Frontex with an additional €26 million to beef up the Triton operation in Italy and the Poseidon operation in Greece from June until the end of 2015. The Triton budget for 2015 will be €38 million and that of Poseidon €18 million. In 2016, the European Commission will provide Frontex with an additional €45 million for the two operations.
On 27 May, the European Commission outlined its Agenda for Migration and pointed out that “the Frontex budgets allocated to the joint Triton and Poseidon operations for the last seven months in 2015 have been tripled. €26 million has been added to the budget initially allocated to the two operations. For 2016, the projected budget of €22.5 million for these two operations has been tripled with an additional €45 million”.
On 26 May, Frontex also announced that it would be setting up a regional base in Sicily from which it will coordinate Operation Triton and work in “close collaboration with liaison officers from Europol, Eurojust and EASO”. A total of 26 European countries will take part in Triton, deploying experts and technical equipment (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom). (Solenn Paulic)