Frontex | Sea

As with all border control, sea border activities are divided into border checks (conducted at the border crossing points at sea ports) and border surveillance, which is conducted at sea. Frontex coordinated joint operations at sea represent Europe’s biggest Search and Rescue (SAR) operation. Every year thousands of migrants attempt to reach the EU by sea, often travelling in dangerously over-crowded and unseaworthy boats. Saving lives at sea and intercepting both migrants and the people who smuggle them go hand in hand. But smuggling and trafficking networks are not easily deterred. Organised crime is profit-motivated and the methods employed become ever more complex and sophisticated. Because of this, the main aim of Frontex is to establish more long-term solutions to joint border control. One of the best examples of this approach is EPN - the European Patrols Network.

European Patrols Network
For Member States to work more closely together in the area of sea surveillance, it was necessary first to clarify how many different authorities were engaged in marine surveillance, and to what extent their activities overlapped. A Frontex survey of seven Mediterranean countries (Spain, France, Italy, Slovenia, Malta, Greece and Cyprus) plus Portugal, ascertained that a total of 50 separate authorities, under 30 ministries, were active in marine surveillance along the EU’s southern borders. A later study of the northern EU countries subsequently found that as many as 40 different agencies - from fisheries to coastguard to naval patrols -could be simultaneously active. Furthermore, many of these operations overlapped in terms of scope and geographical area. There was clearly a need for Member States to find areas of common interest to reduce duplicated effort and hence save time, money and other resources. As a result, in May 2007, European Patrols Network was born.

The aim of EPN was to create a means of coordinating the efforts between Member States and different agencies in order to tackle criminal networks - the traffickers and smugglers who charge irregular migrants for passage - more effectively. Today, this multi-agency approach extends to areas as diverse as illegal fishing, pollution and drug trafficking and EPN operations form the backbone of Frontex-coordinated joint operations at sea – particularly on the Mediterranean Sea border. Europe’s southern coastline is long and varied, with different areas being targeted by irregular migrants at different times. The challenge then, is to target resources effectively, and for this intelligence and information sharing are the keys to success. EPN operations, reinforced by complementary Frontex sea operations, have had a marked effect in the Western and Central Mediterranean regions.

The job is never finished however. The networks of human smugglers and traffickers stay abreast of Frontex operations; as soon as a route is identified and closed down by an EPN or Frontex sea operation, the facilitators will adjust either the route or their modus operandi to stay ahead of the detection net.

For this reason, all information and operational intelligence gathered during these operations is shared between all the Member States involved. Another tangible benefit of the EPN strategy has been an increase in the amount of bi-lateral cooperation between neighbouring Member States within the Mediterranean area, increasing effectiveness, reducing costs, and saving lives.