Tightening the Weak Link

The European Commission called for the setting up of a border guard corps on Tuesday, despite expected resistence from some member states reluctant to cede any national powers.

Speaking in Brussels, Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Antonio Vitorino said he realised these "were extremely delicate questions that went directly to national sovereignty", but warned that "the lack of a clearly asserted common vision and common policy on external borders entails major political and strategic risks ".

The plan includes beefed up controls at airports, seaports and land crossings into the EU from non-EU countries and a common border guard corps.

Too unsecure

The unveiling comes at a time when populist politicians across Europe are increasingly arguing that EU enlargement will mean porous borders, illegal immigration, trafficking, more crime – and less security.

"In all the opinion polls concerning the prospect of enlargement, the public are reminding us of the need to preserve or ... raise the level of domestic security in the EU," Vitorino said.

Security has also become a major subject in the EU following September 11.

The EU has called for stricter controls for those candidate states which border on Non-EU countries, requiring them to introduce visas for external borders well ahead of accession, invest heavily in police equipment and training, and in data gathering equipment.

For some countries, like Poland, this is a great challenge. The former Eastern bloc country will have the Union's longest external border, sharing it with Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia.

Not sufficient

Tight external border control is essential to candidate’s membership, as new members will become part of the Shengen system which eliminated internal border controls between the 15 member states.

In Hungary, migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and other Asian countries, having crossed the former Soviet Union, can gain fairly easily access to Western Europe.

At present only the Austrian border seperates them from the EU. Once Hungary becomes a member state, then this becomes an internal border, which is no longer controlled.

Four candidate countries - Hungary, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Cyprus - have all concluded negotiations on the EU Home and justice affairs chapter.

Poland isn't that far. The Commission’s 2001 progress report found that it still lacked modern equipment at its border crossing points – essential for the screening of containers.

Understaffing at border crossings, lack of staff motivation and low salaries are also of concern.

Candidate states responsible

"To a great extent, the future member states will be responsible for the internal security of the Union while still undergoing the process of economic and social transition", the Commission’s Tuesday paper on common border control said.

But will these states be able to carry this responsibility?

The accession states do not have to carry all the administrative costs of policing the EU’s external borders. EU financial assistance comes from the Community’s PHARE programme. 69 per cent of Phare is allocated to the improving of frontier checks, the training of border control guards and upgrading equipment.

On Tuesday, Commissioner Antonio Vitorino avoided who was to pay for a new border guards corps, saying that a large part of pre-accession funding to candidate states was used to improve border management and officers’ training.

Welcomed by member states

As a first step towards creating a European border police, the Commission wants to introduce a common manual over how the EU’s borders are controlled.

The second phase entails setting up common standards among member staes for carrying out checks on external borders and exchanging information between the authorities. In practice, this would mean a German border guard would have the same powers to question individuals as a Polish and vice versa.

The third and final stage would be setting up the European border police corps and a special training college to be financed in part by member states, but also through the Comunity budget.

The common border guards – or "External practitioners unit" will then work closely together with EUROPOL, Europe's current police authority, and other police cooperation authorities.

Germany on Tuesday welcomed the Commission’s proposal, but said that welding different policing cultures in EU member states would take time. The Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark questioned how the strengthening of the border would be financed.

Exclusion with inclusion

Enlargement has become a great question of public confidence, as member states still fear a flood of illegal immigrants from and via Eastern European countries and an increase in trafficking and more crime after accession.

But tightening border controls may lead to further discrepancies within Europe.

According to Jan Zielonka, Professor of Political Science at the European University Institute in Florence, "If the main rationale behind the EU's enlargement is to reduce inequality, division and exclusion in post-Cold War Europe, the policy of hardening the Union's external borders is likely to undermine rather than enhance this objective, regardless of any noble reasons and qualifications."