EU: Draft border proposals: "drones and motion sensors, as well as mobile units to prevent unauthorised border crossings"
Topic
Country/Region
13 December 2021
Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL amending Regulation (EU) 2016/399 as regards the response to threats to the area without controls at internal borders: "SENSITIVE UNTIL ADOPTION"
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The European Commission is to propose amendments to EU border rules that would:
- introduce a new mechanism for introducing temporary travel restrictions to be applied at all external Schengen borders (a reaction to the uneven implementation of rules introduced at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic);
- in response to the "instrumentalisation of migrants" by non-EU states (think: Belarus), allow member states to limit the number of border crossing points and their opening hours, ensure that "A person who has attempted to cross or crossed a border illegally and who has no right to stay on the territory of the Member State concerned [is] prevented from entering the territory of a Member State," and increasing external border surveillance, including through "modern technologies including drones and motion sensors, as well as mobile units to prevent unauthorised border crossings into the Union";
- change the procedures for reintroducing internal border controls between Schengen states;
- give EU blessing to more stringent surveillance measures at internal borders, to try to prevent the reintroduction of border controls themselves; and
- make it simpler to conduct the summary return of irregular migrants from one member state to another.
See: EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Brussels, XXX [...](2021) XXX draft: Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL amending Regulation (EU) 2016/399 as regards the response to threats to the area without controls at internal borders (pdf): "SENSITIVE UNTIL ADOPTION (Distribution only on a ‘Need to know’ basis )"
Image: Atilla Németh, CC BY-NC 2.0
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