Prague, July 16 (CTK) – The EU may consider establishing a joint and jointly financed European “border protection corps” in order too boost its security and stem the inflow of illegal migrants as well as organised crime that profits from them, Milos Balaban writes in Czech daily Pravo yesterday.
He cites the statement Czech President Milos Zeman made earlier this week, saying that one day, the Czech Republic will probably have to ask the military to guard the state border.
This statement of Zeman should not go unnoticed, he writes.
It is a natural reaction, in view of the Interior Ministry’s prognosis that over 10,000 migrants may enter the Czech Republic in two years, regardless of whether the EU redistribution quotas are introduced, Balaban writes.
On the other hand, Zeman’s words may mean that he is calculating with the catastrophic scenario of the end of the Schengen area and possibly of the whole EU – a situation where each European country would have to secure its territory and citizens on its own, Balaban writes.
In fact, this would mean a decline of NATO as well, he says.
For the Czech military, with its small size and poor preparedness, the guarding of the Czech border would be an excessive burden, which would definitely force it to reduce the fulfilment of its commitments within NATO, Balaban writes.
The same is probably true of the other European NATO members, perhaps with a few exceptions, he adds.
Zeman’s words may be an impulse for European leaders to discuss the present state of European defence, Balaban writes.
Most recently, the leaders were willing to spend hundreds of hours negotiating about the economic salvation of one EU member. Hundreds of billions of euros have been discussed in connection with the Greek debt crisis, though in fact a large part of the Greek debt is irrecoverable and the economic aid to Greece irretrievable, Balaban writes.
The maintenance of Greece in the euro zone is a (geo)political priority, whatever the costs, he says.
A similar geopolitical priority may be a joint, not national, guarding of the EU’s external borders, he continues.
The establishment of a European army is unthinkable now, but the establishment of a joint and jointly financed “border protection corps” may be more acceptable, regarding the recent wave of refugees, Balaban says.
By the way, such border protection would be very useful in Italy, Greece and Hungary now. It is evident that the protection of the EU’s external border is beyond the forces of the individual EU countries situated along it. Paradoxically, this has been proved by Hungary’s decision to build an anti-refugee barrier on its border with Serbia, Balaban writes.
The European “border guards” could not be comprised of military units only, but would also have to include police, customs officers, specialists in asylum and migration issues, and also specialists in fighting organised crime, which clearly profits on the refugee waves, Balaban writes.
The training, equipment and operation of a joint border protection corps would undoubtedly be far from cheap, but the costs would definitively be much lower than the expenses on Greece, Balaban writes.
Compared with the aid to Greece, the launch of a joint border protection corps would boost Europeans’ awareness of the need of unity in face of the instable and unpredictable security environment of the present era, Balaban writes.
