Brussels, 22/01/2007 (Agence Europe) - The European Borders Agency, FRONTEX, is experiencing difficulty in recruiting experts, even though it is at the heart of current efforts to combat illegal immigration, its Finnish director Ilkka Laitinen has said. Due to a lack of enthusiasm among staff to move to the Agency headquarters in Warsaw, FRONTEX could find itself unable to coordinate patrols on the southern borders of the EU, at a time when thousands of sub-Saharan Africans will be trying to enter in the spring.
“Recruitment is a challenge for our young organisation. In particular, potential candidates can be reluctant to relocate to Warsaw, where wages are significantly lower than in the west,” Mr Laitinen, reported in Monday's Financial Times, said. He added, “At a time when Member States expect us to become more active, we cannot face these growing expectations with our existing workforce alone”. Recruitment problems within the Agency have already seen two or three projects delayed, Mr Laitinen said. The annual budget allocated to FRONTEX has doubled this year to €35 million, but this money cannot be used to make salaries more attractive, since wages have had a ceiling of 81.4% of the wages of Brussels-based officials imposed on them. “There is a danger that without full cooperation from Member States, and enough staff, we would have too few activities on which to spend the extra money that we are due to receive next year,” Mr Laitinen concluded.
As recently announced by Commissioner Franco Frattini, FRONTEX intends to write directly to Member States this week to ask them for their contribution in order to avoid the foreseeable influx of immigrants from April onwards (see EUROPE 9344). (bc)