ER Editor: At the current time, we’re hearing very little about migration into the EU, while much is being said about the potential migration flood via the southern US border, as article 42 reached its deadline two days ago (article 42, created under Trump, restricts border flow into the US based on health considerations). El Paso TX (see ‘El Paso’ search on Twitter) has witnessed some shocking scenes in the past couple of weeks. Informal reports say that migrants have been gathering en masse at the Darien Gap park area of Panama, ready to make this march.
See this Zerohedge piece from today:
Migrants Reveal Plans To Sneak Into US Since Title 42 Has Expired
But what of Europe?
This recent Politico.eu article (severe MSM alert) gives us some marginal indications, without pointing fingers where they should be pointed. We’ve added a couple of supporting details from CNN below that.
Here we pull out some highlights of this article that Politico doesn’t want us to focus on.
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New EU border chief vows to clean up Frontex agency as migrant numbers surge
BRUSSELS — Europe is facing an increase in migrant arrivals — but the EU border agency will not again turn its back to human rights violations along its borders.
That’s the message of Hans Leijtens, the new head of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, also known as Frontex, in an interview with POLITICO.
Leijtens, described by some as “a cop with strong diplomatic skills,” started as Frontex’s executive director in March.
The Dutchman took office as agency figures show a more than 300 percent increase in migrant arrivals in the Central Mediterranean in the first three months of this year alone.
“I became a bit allergic [to] the word crisis,” he said, speaking at the agency’s office in Brussels. “I just see facts and figures. And those worry me — because what I see is a huge rise,” in people crossing the Mediterranean especially.
Migration through the Balkans route has allegedly decreased, but flows are up overall by 26% the new border chief claims.
The article ridiculously points fingers at Syria and Russia, climate change, Sudan, migrant smugglers ‘improving their skills’, etc. All presented as evidence-free claims.
But all this is proving a boon for EU administration, paid for by the taxpayer. Frontex is now the fastest-growing EU agency:
The organization will expand to up to 11,000 employees — “which is huge,” Leijtens stressed. “Our budget has grown toward €1 billion.”
And this organization is based in … Warsaw. Why?
It seems that the migration agency has had significant internal problems, resulting in the appointment of a new chief, Dutchman Hans Leijtens. It’s not clear what these problems have been – allegations of fraud and financial mismanagement, that have been under investigation by the EU anti-fraud agency, OLAF. Or because practices restricting migrants crossing borders into certain countries have been endorsed or tolerated by certain agency officials. Or because of a ‘toxic’ atmosphere at the agency. Certainly, there are some problems at the Frontex agency, which the article doesn’t attempt to drill down into. There will be a new ‘transparency’ culture under Leijtens’ watch, whatever that means.
If restricting migrants is wrong, then why is a 300% increase in migrants crossing the Mediterranean ‘worrying’ to the new chief? He’s just been offered a significant increase in agency manpower to deal with such a situation.
The article gives us a brief clue as to which countries are pushing back on migrants:
One factor not making his job any easier is that NGOs have documented how some EU countries — like Croatia, Hungary and Bulgaria — use pushbacks as a strategy to counter migrant arrivals.
According to a recent study, at least 600 pushbacks occur per day along external EU borders.
The Lithuanian parliament, for example, recently adopted a law legalizing such turning away of irregular migrants at its borders.
This is not a problem yet, Leijtens thinks. “We have people deployed in Lithuania,” he said, “working at border crossing points … It’s not conflicting [with] our current job there.” …
This CNN article from the middle of April (see Europe’s migration policies in chaos as arrivals surge) also gives an indication of figures and entry methods:
The number of undocumented people arriving on European shores by sea has skyrocketed so far this year due to conflict, global inequality and the climate crisis.
More than 36,000 migrants arrived in the Mediterranean region of Europe from January to March this year, nearly twice the number compared with the same period in 2022, according to the latest figures from the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR). It is the highest number since the refugee crisis that peaked in 2015 and continued into the first months of 2016, when the arrival of more than one million migrants on Europe’s shores led EU solidarity to collapse into bickering and border chaos.
So far this year, more than 98% have arrived by sea, against 2% by land, the highest share since 2016, according to the UN. And an estimated 522 migrants have died or gone missing en route, the UN data shows, capturing the lack of safe and legal routes available to refugees and asylum seekers.
Thus we can understand why Italy is having the biggest problem:
“Italy has long been one of the countries that (has) seen a larger proportion of arrivals across the Mediterranean, in comparison to northern European countries. Whilst the EU Commission has tried to instigate sharing and quotas, it really hasn’t worked out,” she said.
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