Extra cash stretches Frontex to limit

The EU’s border control agency will struggle to spend an extra €30 million next year unless it gets more staff and equipment from member states, according to the agency’s head.

Members of the European Parliament have requested an increase in Frontex’s operations budget, as part of negotiations with the member states on the 2008 budget.

Ilkka Laitenen, executive director of Frontex, told European Voice that the increase should be matched by additional staff for the organisation’s Warsaw headquarters and greater commitments from member states to take part in its operations. "An extra €30 million for operational expenditure is a 140% increase. That will have consequences on the human resources side," Laitenen said, adding that the agency would need a 19% increase in staff.

But, Laitenen said, Frontex had faced "persistent difficulties" in recruiting qualified staff. This was partly because officials in Warsaw earned nearly 25% less than their colleagues in Brussels or Luxembourg as the EU calculated that the cost of living in the Polish capital was lower than in the two main cities hosting EU organisations. Laitenen added that jobs with Frontex were not attractive because they were temporary posts.

But Maltese centre-right MEP Simon Busuttil, who initially proposed the increase in Frontex’s budget, defended the Parliament’s position. "There was a similar feeling last year when the Parliament increased the budget by €15 million more than the European Commission’s draft budget. But in the summer [Justice, Freedom and Security Commissioner Franco] Frattini asked for €7 million on top of the €15m," he said.

Busuttil said that one way to ensure that the funds were spent was to lengthen existing missions. Frattini has already proposed that operations in the Mediterranean should be all-year round rather than just in the peak summer months.

The MEP added that he was aware that Frontex was struggling to convince member states to provide planes and boats for the agency to carry out missions but that Parliament was trying to put pressure on national governments to do more.

Laitenen, who has been in charge of Frontex since its launch in 2005, warned that a parallel plan from MEPs to withhold 30% of the agency’s administrative budget until it met certain conditions was "very problematic" when the agency was being expected to increase its activities by 140%.

But Busuttil said that by putting part of the agency’s budget in a reserve line and setting conditions for releasing the funds MEPs wanted to "push member states and Frontex to deliver". The conditions included establishing regular contact between the agency’s director and the Parliament’s civil liberties committee, requiring Frontex to give detailed plans on its operations and to provide a realistic list of member states’ assets like boats and planes the agency could use.

The issue of funding for Frontex will be discussed by MEPs and representatives of the Portuguese presidency on 23 November as part of efforts to resolve differences between the Parliament and EU governments over next year’s budget. Other issues to be settled include the overall level of spending, with MEPs calling for a higher amount than the Council of Ministers, funding for the Galileo satellite positioning system and aid for Kosovo and the Palestinian authority. The 2008 budget should be agreed at the Parliament plenary in December.

The EU’s border control agency will struggle to spend an extra €30 million next year unless it gets more staff and equipment from member states, according to the agency’s head.