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'Frontex 2.0': EU Commissioner Urges to Upgrade Bloc's Border Agency

© AFP 2023 / DIMITAR DILKOFFGerman police officers, representatives of the EU's border management agency Frontex, on the Greek island of Lesbos, look at a dinghy with migrants crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey, on October 17, 2015.
German police officers, representatives of the EU's border management agency Frontex, on the Greek island of Lesbos, look at a dinghy with migrants crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey, on October 17, 2015. - Sputnik International
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The European Union needs to modernize the EU border agency Frontex to effectively protect the external frontiers, the European commissioner for Digital Economy and Society said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — "European agency for border security Frontex should be upgraded to version Frontex 2.0. We need to increase the current number of employees from 350 to 5,000," Gunther Oettinger told Bild am Sonntag in an interview.

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At the same time, the EU commissioner noted that the increase in the number of jobs should not be made in an imperative manner, whereas the police officers and border services’ employees of the union’s member states should be temporary hired.

Frontex, in turn, may put forward the proposals on the issue to the EU countries, Oettinger added.

Earlier in the week, European Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans stressed that the EU external borders were the bloc’s common borders, not just the national ones, that’s why every single EU member was obliged to participate in their joint protection.

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Europe is currently struggling to cope with a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa in search of safety and refuge in Europe.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that some 989,215 migrants and refugees have entered Europe by both land and sea since the beginning of 2015.

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