Brussels, 12/04/2007 (Agence Europe) - Expert rapid reaction teams may soon be formed to provide technical and operational help at times when there are massive influxes of illegal migrants into member states. The EP committee on civil liberties adopted, on Wednesday, the report by Gérard Deprez (ALDE, Belgium) on the proposal for a regulation concerning the RABIT (Rapid Border Intervention Teams) dossier, whereby border guards of one member state may be temporarily posted to another member state to assist in the event of massive arrivals of third country nationals seeking to enter EU territory illegally. This “legally safe” and “operationally effective” mechanism will be very closely coordinated by the EU frontier management agency, Frontex, the rapporteur notes. The text (codecision), which is the result of a prior agreement reached by the EP and Council, will be put to the vote of the plenary assembly in Strasbourg in April (at first reading). In the meantime, it should be the subject of a political agreement during the Justice and Home Affairs Council to be held in Luxembourg next week, pending definitive adoption in Council mid-June. Presenting the main elements of the report to a press conference on Wednesday, Mr Deprez welcomed the speed with which the three institutions have worked. With the new regulation, he pointed out, the EU will have a strategic “pool” of between 250 and 500 qualified experts available for the member states and Frontex. He went on to say that the Parliament has made substantial changes to the text in order to include, for example, the principle of “mandatory solidarity”. This is a “mandatory provision”, the MEP said, in so far as states will not, except in very exceptional cases, be able to refuse to deploy their agents (border guards, translators) in another member state. Other additions include: - respect of fundamental rights, the notion of equal treatment for border guards sent to a state other than their own (including the carrying of weapons), and the drastic simplification of accreditation documents. In practice, a member state that is confronted by exceptional pressure from illegal immigrants may call on Frontex for assistance. Frontex, through its management board, will then call on each member state to automatically appoint agents to be rapidly deployed on a support mission. The GUE/NGL group headed by Giusto Catania of Italy, who voted against the report, points out that this proposal for a regulation was “too focused” on combating illegal immigration when it might have been “more useful” to have a provision to support those in difficulty, a spokesman said. Mr Deprez' rejoinder was: “Exactly, at Mr Catania's request, I have introduced into the whereas and into the body of the text explicit references to international protection norms and to the principle of non-repatriation, as well as obligations arising from the international law of the sea concerning search and rescue, as well as the protection of persons regarding the processing of personal data”. “I am therefore surprised by this negative vote”, the MEP said. (bc)