Secure borders

Strengthening our border control capacity

One of the most important freedoms that our citizens enjoy is passport-free travel within the EU. We can only guarantee this freedom if we secure our external borders, to monitor who is crossing them at all times.

The EPP Group is in favour of a strong European Border and Coast Guard (Frontex) with increased resources and capacities, ready to deploy immediately when a country faces disproportionate migratory pressure. We support the reinforcement of Frontex with 10,000 new border guards to help national border enforcement efforts. We also need to equip our borders with the latest technology.

EPP Group Members have championed an electronic entry/exit system registering all non-EU citizens arriving in the Schengen area. This system allow easy identification of criminals with false identities entering our territories. We have also put in place a pre-registration system for visa-free travellers to assess further security risks.

A fair and robust migration policy

We want a clear distinction between legitimate asylum seekers and irregular migrants. We welcome those people in genuine need of protection, while we believe we should discourage those trying to come to the EU illegally, through policies of robust border management and effective returns.

Effectiveness through cooperation

We advocate eliminating the blind spots that exist because EU countries use different data collection systems. Because security and migration are increasingly issues no single country can deal with alone, Member States should cooperate more in sharing information and make their systems interoperable. Police officers, migration officials or border guards would this way have faster, seamless and more systematic access to the information they need to do their jobs.

We also encourage agreements with third countries that allow us to control and reduce migration flows before migrants arrive at EU borders.