Operation Frontex

As one well-wisher who stopped me in the street put it to me this week, my recent nomination as the EPP's spokesman on Frontex is not likely to help me win many votes in the European Parliament election next year. That may well be the case given the sensitivity of the subject of immigration and the dearth of public figures who tackle it. But, as an MEP, and a Maltese one at that, I nevertheless look forward to the opportunity to help shape the development of the EU's external borders agency. And I am looking forward to this interesting challenge, come what may.

Frontex only started operating in October 2005 and it would be fair to state that it has had to hit the ground running, well before it learnt how to walk.

It was entrusted with the thankless task of getting EU countries to cooperate in the management of their external borders. This, at a time when the wave of immigration from Africa was becoming a growing concern for public opinion. Allaying peoples' fears and demonstrating that Europe means business is, therefore, necessarily part of the brief to which Frontex must measure up.

So far it has not done so, although this is not to say that Frontex has failed. On the contrary, my view is that - despite its limited experience and significant constraints - Frontex has already made a difference. And given the proper direction and adequate resources, it can do more.

Let there be no mistake. Without Frontex, the number of immigrants landing in Malta and in other southern EU countries would have been far greater in number.

The debate on Frontex should be put in a proper perspective, notably a clear understanding on what we want from this agency and how we can get there. Let me highlight a few points that will need to be ironed out.

At the outset there is some confusion over who should do what. The policing of external borders is a responsibility that lies with individual countries. Frontex does not have the responsibility, let alone the means, to do this. Suffice it to recall that individual countries, particularly large countries, dedicate substantial financial and military resources to secure their external borders. Frontex has no equipment of its own, no navy and no air force. So thinking that Frontex can take over this responsibility is not realistic and will not get us anywhere.

On the other hand, however, it is equally true that external borders are increasingly becoming a matter of common concern.

Take the free-movement Schengen zone, which we have just joined. This zone created a huge internal space of free movement among 24 countries. But, of course, this implies that whenever a person illegally breaches an external border of one of the Schengen countries that person is then free to move around, throughout the entire zone. It stands to reason, therefore, that the external borders of the Schengen countries cannot remain the sole concern of individual countries but must become a common concern of all of them.

So far, for reasons of sovereignty and all that, EU countries have been ditching the inevitability of a common external borders policy. But, as always in Europe, sooner or later reality will catch up with them. This explains why Frontex has so far "only" been tasked with "coordinating" the "cooperation" among EU countries over external borders.

It is therefore no surprise that there is a discrepancy between, on the one hand, the agency's limited role and, on the other, the compelling need - as well as the public expectation - for Europe to have a greater role in securing our external borders. After all, if Europe removed internal borders, why shouldn't it be concerned with policing external borders?

What's more, in today's world, it is increasingly clear that no single country can, on its own, completely secure its external borders. Southern EU countries, both large and small, already know this at their own expense. Others, such as the UK (which has kept out of arrangements such as Schengen) still think they can do it on their own.

But reality will inevitably catch up with them too. Common action is increasingly making sense to the large countries, never mind the smaller ones.

All this calls for an assessment and a rethink of the role of Frontex. And its tasks should better match the duties and expectations that have been piled onto it. Few may have been aware - perhaps before reading this piece - that, so far, Frontex has little power to do what we expect it to do. No wonder, therefore, that few are happy with what it has achieved so far.

So a debate must start in earnest over what exactly it should be doing and how.

In February this year the European Commission published its initial views on Frontex and the European Parliament will now be responding. And although we need not go as far as setting up a European Border Guard system, as the Commission is inclined to, there is no question that we need to be open-minded on what, as it were, we would like Frontex to do when it grows up.

And because we live in a changing world, even as we debate the future remit of the agency, we must also ensure that, in the present, Frontex does its best to get everyone together to support those countries that are facing difficulties because of migration affecting their external borders. Migratory pressures are particularly burdensome on the southern EU countries, such as Malta and Greece.

This means that short-term measures to address this situation are called for. This is why Frontex is resuming its missions in different parts of Europe, including one in the central Mediterranean region - Nautilus - which will last for the full six-month immigration season uninterruptedly. That's up from just two months last years and just two weeks the year before.

I have strongly pushed for these missions. Not because they will deliver a quick-fix solution - they will not - but because they mitigate the difficulties and act as a deterrent by transmitting the all-important message that Europe is not a free-for-all. And they also compel EU countries to help each other out - taking EU solidarity beyond the idea of providing financial support. This is so much more than that.

Frontex is not a panacea and it has yet no answer to some sticky questions. For instance, all countries agree on the obvious duty to save lives. But on who takes the people whose lives are saved at sea confusion and resistance still reigns supreme.

This is a tricky issue, especially when incidents occur in the maritime zone for which third countries, such as Libya, are responsible. Malta is entirely right to have consistently asserted that it is prepared to save lives in such zones, by all means, but not to accept the responsibility for hosting them.

So the question remains as to who hosts them. Whether we like it or not, individual EU countries are still not prepared, still less obliged, to accept migrants saved in the Mediterranean Sea or the Atlantic Ocean. And this explains why Malta's proposal for burden-sharing made in June last year still remains stuck on the table.

Nor is Frontex the key plank of a common European immigration policy. It is but one policy instrument among a range of others, notably a more effective development policy that addresses the root causes of migration in the countries of origin.

The well-wisher who stopped me in the street may well be right. But as things stand, we need more, not less, Frontex.

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