EU border agency under pressure to restart patrol mission
By Helena Spongenberg
The EU border control agency, Frontex, has come under pressure to continue the bloc’s southern border control mission aimed at limiting illegal immigration into the 27-member union.
French centre-right MEP Joseph Daul appealed to EU justice and home affairs commissioner Franco Frattini to push for a restart, as soon as possible, of the so-called “Nautilus II” patrols off the Maltese coast.
The month-long Nautilus II, the second patrol mission held in the waters between http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1159, Malta and Libya under coordination of the EU’s border control agency Frontex, paused last week due to lack of resources, according to the European Commission.
In a letter to Mr Frattini on 1 August, Mr Daul said: “I am sure that your intervention will have a decisive impact on the resumption of the Frontex mission in the Mediterranean area”.”It appears that the mission has been effective in reducing the number of arrivals to http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=507, when one compares the number to the arrivals in the same period last month – 50% less,” said Mr Daul.