6 September 2007

EU

Frontex, the EU agency based in Warsaw, was created as a specialised and independent body tasked to coordinate the operational cooperation between Member States in the field of border security. The activities of Frontex are intelligence driven. Frontex complements and provides particular added value to the national border management systems of the Member States.

This is how Frontex is presented on their homepage. It's not hard to figure out what the objective of the agency is: to keep "unwelcome guests" out of the EU. But of course they do not say this - the objectives are softened by means of euphemisms and fuzzy management talk. Added value to the national border management systems of the Member States? Border Management?

Frontex is an EU-associated agency, operating from Warsaw, whose mission it is to help the individual EU member states secure their borders. Their tasks include coordination, development of surveillance methods, risk analyses and training of guards. On the homepage the agency declares that they promote the freedom and security of EU citizens. What about the security and freedom of people outside the EU?


- It seems to me that there is something highly problematic in at least some ideas about what the EU is about, that EU is an interest club for the few lucky states invited, that the function of EU is to secure the interests of the memeber states. The rest of the world is not included in what has to be taken into consideration. The rest of the world is simply a factor that has to be managed. And for that we need Frontex.

I don't think EU is exclusively about this, but sometimes I wonder.

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