The Frontex Solution?

Back around eleven years ago (2004)....the EU got around to a problem and used a joint commission to create Frontex.  Frontex was a EU agency that would take on assigned tasks and use EU rules....not individual country rules....to handle human trafficking and terrorists operations within the EU.  To some degree, they had the minor task of handling immigration....mostly just the paperwork involved.

According to the London Telegraph this morning....the Brits and the EU have this idea of pushing Frontex up to the major problem of handling all of the refugees and immigration.  The idea being pushed politically....is that one single agency would take over the border episode and there would be one single border within Europe (a shocking suggestion if you think about it).  Frontex would have the sole responsibility of enforcing that border.  Just the sheer number of employees required for the job....would probably get into the tens of thousands.

Added to the new job....Frontex would be given a list of favored and unfavored countries.....thus being the approval or disapproval process "king".  If you met condition A and B, then you got asylum or immigration status.  But, somewhere in this process.....all of the twenty-eight countries in the EU would agree to accept a percentage of refugees.  So if Frontex send four-hundred Syrians to Belgium....they'd have to accept it.  The four-hundred Syrians?  Well, that's a curious thing.....if they preferred Germany, and didn't want Belgium.  Presently....most all Syrians prefer Germany over the other 27 EU members.  

A trouble-some agency job?  Yeah.

The odds of Frontex getting approved for the border job and the handling of refugees (top to bottom)?  I'd say zero chance.  Around a dozen EU countries are concerned over the border issue, and they aren't about to hand this function over to some outsider to arrange.  Where is the control and where are the concerns of the citizens of that country?  Non-existent.....it would all lead back to Brussels and the EU headquarters.

Being forced to handle incoming refugees?  That's a whole different problem and I could see more than twenty EU members saying that they won't participate in a Frontex gimmick solution.  

The Telegraph indicates that discussions will start up in a matter of a week or two at Brussels over this enlarged mission for Frontex......slightly ahead of the mid-October ten-point discussion that Germany intends to push for major changes in the EU structure over immigration and refugees. If Frontex doesn't get some 'lift'.....the potential for failure over the ten points increases.

The one plus if Frontex did take over the bureaucratic approval/disapproval process?  Frontex would hire several thousand new employees....passing the bill to the EU....and speed the process of approval/disapproval from weeks or months....down to a matter of days.  Under a Frontex management scheme....you could get picked up on a Friday and probably have your application stamped final within a week or two.  If disapproved, I could see Frontex having you on a bus within ten days and going back to your homeland.  That by itself.....might be a major improvement.

So, when you hear about the Frontex idea within the new expanding mission....the gimmick is simply to contract out a difficult service to people with simplified priorities and no political interest.  In a perfect world....it might be the best answer.  But the EU isn't that perfect world.

Added note: if you were curious.....there's presently only around 300-to-350 employees of Frontex.  Just to take over the immigration handling part of this....they'd have to hire a minimum of 3,000 employees (my best guess), to reach stage one of this episode.