A European Border and Coast Guard?

 I once categorized the European Union as a country with a legislature and a judiciary but no executive. Doug Muir took exception to that, but I still think it holds. Europe has a bureaucracy, yes, but with a single exception of competition policy those bureaucrats do not tell private actors what to do. Rather, they tell the executive agencies of E.U. states to tell private actors what to do. People in, say, Spanish uniforms inspect car emissions (or contract with private labs to inspect car emissions), collect tariffs, monitor borders, arrest miscreants, impose fines, inspect vegetables, and carry out all the other policy missions determined in Brussels.

This is very different from real federal countries, like the United States. Europe has food and drug regulators. They never ever ever dress up like the guy on the right, who is an FDA agent named Robert Maes in the process of raiding a facility in Los Angeles. (Yes, FDA. Not a typo.) In the European Union, the European Medicines Agency might find out about a violation, but the people with guns who show up would work for (say) the Agencia Española de Medicamentos y Productos Sanitarios. 

But now under pressure from the mass migration out of Syria (and to a lesser extent elsewhere) the European Commission has just proposed the creation of a European Border and Coast Guard Agency. Go read the link. Impressed? You should be. A more detailed Q&A is here. You can find the full legislative proposal here. 

It still isn’ t quite a fully federal European Coast Guard. Yes, the EBCG will have its own uniformed personnel. Yes, the EBCG will maintain its own equipment pool. Yes, the EBCG will have the power to operate inside E.U. states without the local government’s approval. But most of its capabilities will be provided by reserve pools of uniformed personnel. The EBCG can call those personnel up for European duty whenever the E.U. so chooses, but the personnel will continue to wear their national uniforms (plus a blue armband, see page 49) and will operate under the same restrictions that the state government applies to its own law enforcement personnel. 

The authorization for all this is under Article 77 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the first part of which reads:

1. The Union shall develop a policy with a view to:

(a) ensuring the absence of any controls on persons, whatever their nationality, when crossing internal borders;

(b) carrying out checks on persons and efficient monitoring of the crossing of external borders;

(c) the gradual introduction of an integrated management system for external borders.

I guess you could call the proposal an “integrated management system,” although that seems like a bit of an understatement. For all its limitations, it strikes me as one hell of a leap towards a federal Europe, if it happens. 

So, readers, will it happen? The recent history of the Eurozone makes me wonder. 

Comments

[shah8]

Authorization is one thing.

How will it be funded, where will it be staffed, and how permanent are those arrangements?

[Noel Maurer]

You didn't click the links!

The answers are in the official legislation at the link! This isn't a vague proposal; it's a proposal ready to go to a vote in the Council and Parliament. Article 75 covers the budget. The Q&A provides an estimate: €322 million by 2020. HQ will be in Warsaw, which is obviously a political decision to win over one of the bolshiest E.U. states; it should be in Brussels.

The links have all your answers; this is not a trial balloon by any means. But that does not mean that it will happen. Nor does it mean that I am correctly weighing its significance. (After all, it still isn't quite a federal agency the way Americans or Canadians would think of it; most of the personnel and equipment will still be seconded from state forces.) It does mean, though, that there isn't a whole lot gray in the proposal.

[Will Baird]

Hrmph. They should have bought Kaliningrad back in the 90s and made THAT the capital.

A bit more seriously, I thought you were calling the EU the second coming of the Holy Roman Empire?

[Noel Maurer]

Not tracking, Will.

[Will Baird]

My bad. Should have left off the humor and written something in more detail. Let me rephrase the comment without it.

Back in the early Oughts on SHWI, you referred to the EU has Holy Roman Empire reborn. (in different words) This was, you stated, the default setting for Europe's governance[1,2].

With regards to this new agency, does the new agency's creation and structure reinforce the HRE model or count as proof against?

1. Doug calls the EU something completely new, which I'm not so sure about.

2. yes, your comment really stuck.

[J.H.]

It strikes me a step in the direction of a confederal Europe since the seconding of personnel to the EBCG force (as opposed a wholly separate agency with entirely separate personnel) seems more confederal in nature than federal.

[Noel Maurer]

Will: this is an old debate between Doug and me. Often, that just means I haven't grokked his argument. The EBCG is another step away from the Holy Roman model.

JH: it's a hybrid. There will be about 1,000 full time employees and agents and permanent European equipment reserves, but the bulk of the capacity will be on reserve from the states. Note, however, that when called up state agents will be attached to the EBCG as individuals, not members of national units. That's a big jump in integration from having Brussels give an order to Spanish customs agents.

I'd consider the current E.U. set-up to be confederal. The EBCG Agency seems somewhere between federal and confederal.

I'd like to know what Doug thinks. Given that the E.U. hasn't been able to get through a no-brainer strong banking union under even immense pressure, I have doubts about this proposal.

[Will Baird]

I have to wonder if you the way the border guard was created was still HRE: each country still contributes rather than it be purely an EU entity.

[Noel Maurer]

It looks as if the new Polish government doesn't trust the new agency.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4a09367c-a34c-11e5-bc70-7ff6d4fd203a.html

Putting it in Warsaw is obviously a sop to Polish euroskepticism (as was putting Frontex there earlier). Whether that's worth anything with the new bunch of crazies in power there is a good question.

[J.H.]

Well at least one professor of EU (and human rights) law believes the proposal exceeds the powers available for the EU under the treaties:

http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-reform-of-frontex-saving-schengen.html

[Chris Williams]

Still, there are no precedents for local governments which want to step out of line merely asserting their territorial monopolies of force against the operatives of international organisations. Apart from this one, yesterday: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/18/polish-military-police-raid-nato-centre-warsaw

[Will Baird]

The new Polish government is doing all sorts of things. IDK enough to say whether they are .. off rails or not.

http://news.yahoo.com/polish-authorities-raid-nato-spy-centre-fire-staff-182643425.html