Brussels, 21/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - EU home affairs ministers, meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday 21 April, took note of progress towards the creation of a European coastguard agency and praised the approach taken hitherto by the Dutch Presidency of the Council of the EU which is looking to reach political agreement with the European Parliament before summer. The Dutch minister of migration, Klaas Dijkhoff, would even like the new structure to be operational as early as this summer. With this aim in mind, some parts of the proposal could already begin to be put into effect, he said.
The Council adopted a general approach by written procedure on 6 April, allowing negotiations with the European Parliament to be opened as soon as it adopts its opinion, probably at the end of May. The new agency will replace Frontex and will be granted greater powers and increased resources. It will have a permanent reserve of coastguards for rapid deployment in the event of a crisis. The agency will also carry out vulnerability studies at the external borders.
At their last formal meeting on 10 March, the home affairs ministers reached agreement on the main points of the new regulation and accepted the concept of the right to intervene at specific points on the external borders of the Schengen area in the event of serious failings. While the text states that intervention of this sort may be carried out without the explicit agreement of the member state concerned, no one can imagine at this point that the member state would refuse to be assisted, said a diplomatic source on Wednesday 20 April.
Any such interventions would require a Council decision and no longer one by the Commission, as the latter had proposed. Were urgent action to be required, the member state concerned would be called on to cooperate. In the extreme case, however, where that state refused to cooperate, the proposal stipulates that one or more member states could reinstate border controls at their internal borders for a period of up to six months, renewable three times if the shortcomings persist. Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos gave assurances that the proposal was in no way a threat to member states' sovereignty. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)