Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is in the interests of all the Member States that the EU’s external borders should be secured. Whereas Austria, Germany and the Benelux states will soon have no EU external border of their own to defend, Italy alone has 7 600 km of maritime frontier to police, half of it in the Adriatic and the southern Mediterranean. Europe must not leave either Italy or the new Member States in Central and Eastern Europe to perform this task alone, and it must also establish common standards. By producing this proposal to establish a European Agency for Operational Cooperation at the External Borders, the Commission is now, at last, responding to a long-standing demand by this House. As long ago as 1998, Mr Posselt’s report called for protection of the EU’s external borders to be put on a Community basis, a demand described to our committee by Commissioner Verheugen in April 2002 as superfluous. Now at last, the Commission is taking action, belatedly, almost too late in the day, as enlargement is two months away. We in this House are regularly underwhelmed by proposals for the setting up of EU agencies, for an immense number of new ones is currently sprouting like weeds all over Europe, fragmenting the Commission’s competences and scarcely under control. We do, however, welcome the establishment of this one, it being a first step towards putting the defence of the external borders on a Community footing and consequently transferring competences to the European level. That, unfortunately, is only part of the story; as always, the devil is in the detail. Let me start with the substance of the proposal made by the Commission in November 2003. The Agency is meant to coordinate the Member States’ operational collaboration, to give backup in the training of officials, to carry out risk analyses and to monitor developments in research. It is not clear to the committee why the agency should also coordinate the return of third-country nationals illegally residing in the Member States; such a role makes no sense unless there are uniform standards, about which the Council of Ministers has so far been engaged in fruitless dispute. The Agency was also intended to concentrate on guarding borders rather than on other tasks. The Agency has, however, been denied another core competence. Only much later is consideration to be given to the possibility of transferring to the Agency the right to carry out inspections on the external borders. Why is this so? The Agency is even now meant to be evaluating the outcomes of joint actions and carrying out extensive analyses. How is it meant to do this if it is unable to be present on the spot to get a picture of how things are on the ground? Competences are being established here without the machinery to monitor them, and this will bring inefficiency in its wake. Our committee demands that we should not completely lose sight of the option of a joint border guard structure. The Agency must at least have the task of examining whether such a body is needed. The worst thing about this agency, though, is its structure. Commissioner Vitorino, I can tell you that there is not one expert who believes that an agency of this sort can even begin to function with a staff of 27; it will need at least double the number of staff – between 45 and 50 of them. Your proposal is that the Management Board should consist of twelve members appointed by the Council and two representatives of the Commission, and that they would choose the Executive Director. In so doing, you evade your own responsibility. Why does the Management Board not have an equal number of members appointed by the Commission and the Council respectively, and why is the position of Executive Director not to be publicly advertised in the same way as the posts of other heads of important EU authorities? We want the Agency to have close ties to the Commission, for who, after all, is supposed to monitor the Agency if the Commission has no responsibility for it? The parliaments of the 25 Member States, perhaps? On the contrary, ladies and gentlemen, if anyone is to monitor it, it must be the body that provides the funds, and that means us. This structure is an evasion of responsibility on your part, and the ongoing debate in the Council shows where that leads. It now has a new document as a basis for discussion, to which we have still not, officially, had access and about which you, Commissioner, have had nothing to say this evening; nor, indeed, did your official tell the committee anything about it. That the Council should disregard our right to be consulted is nothing new, but it is unheard of that the Commission should aid and abet it in doing so. The new proposal envisages all the Member States being represented on the Management Board; having 25 board members for 27 staff members makes Europe look ridiculous. By way of compromise, an additional Executive Board is to be set up, with just five members. This is bureaucracy gone mad; just ask the border guards on the ground, Commissioner. They want more European competences and more support, and they are less intimidated by the European institutions than you are. To sum up, then, the opposite of ‘well-meant’ is ‘badly done’. Although we welcome the Agency, it cannot function if it is along the lines you propose. Now it is my colleague Mr Coelho’s turn to speak. I am sure he will enlarge on what I have said.

Political group: PPE-DE