European Border and Coast Guard

MEPs on Thursday backed a demand that member states must accept some of the refugees and migrants coming to the bloc in large influxes - part of a hotly contested reform ahead of European elections in 2024, Reuters reported.

The European Union's border agency, Frontex, started deploying guards at North Macedonia's southern border with Greece on Thursday in a joint operation with Skopje to control and prevent illegal migration and cross-border crime.

HORGOS - Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic and EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson on Thursday visited joint border patrols deployed by Serbia and Frontex to the Horgos crossing on the Serbia-Hungary border.

BRUSSELS - EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson has announced she would travel to Serbia next week to visit the Hungarian-Serbian border, where EU Frontex Police personnel have been deployed.

At a press briefing on Thursday, Johansson said the deployment of the Frontex mission was a part of efforts aimed at preventing illegal migration on the Western Balkans route.

European Union interior ministers discussed on Thursday ways to curb illegal immigration and return more migrants amid a surge in arrivals following lows during the pandemic, Reuters reported.

The agency notes that controversial ideas about border fences and centers for asylum seekers outside Europe have been revived.

European Union ministers on Thursday sought ways to curb irregular immigration and send more people away as arrivals rose from pandemic lows, reviving controversial ideas for border fences and asylum centres outside of Europe.

EU border agency Frontex reported some 330,000 unauthorised arrivals last year, the highest since 2016, with a sharp increase on the Western Balkans route.

The new executive director of European Union border agency Frontex pledged Thursday to ensure that illegal pushbacks of migrants trying to reach Europe wouldn't take place under his watch.

The number of attempts by migrants to enter the European Union without authorization reached around 330,000 last year, the highest number since 2016, the EU's border and coast guard agency said Friday.

The European Union will send officers from its Frontex border agency to help Macedonian border guards fight illegal migrants after signing an agreement on October 20 to do so.

So far, it has been blocked by Bulgaria's veto on North Macedonia's EU integration, as Sofia did not allow the agreement to be signed in the Macedonian language.

On November 17 last year, when Hervé Yves Caniard entered the 14-floor conference room of the European Union border agency Frontex in Warsaw, European newspapers were flooded with stories of refugees a few hundreds kilometres away, braving the cold at the Belarusian border with Poland.