EU Launches Border and Coast Guard Agency to Deal With Migrants
- Agency will coordinate border deployment of ships, helicopters
- EU’s Avramopoulos speaks at Bulgarian-Turkish border
The force underscores EU countries’ efforts to step up cooperation on protecting their borders in the wake of the trading area’s worst refugee crisis since World War II
Photographer: Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
The European Union launched a common Border and Coast Guard Agency to strengthen its borders in member states dealing with increased arrivals of refugees fleeing conflicts and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
“Today is a milestone in the history of European border management,” EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said on Thursday in Kapitan Andreevo, Bulgaria, on the border with Turkey. “From now onward, the external EU border of one member state is the external border of all member states – both legally and operationally.”