Vanessa works as a shift leader and Frontex Tactical Supporting Officer, this fancy title that has a very practical dimension in the daily life of EU border guards: “The main goal of my work is to provide support to EU and Schengen countries in managing the EU’s external borders and tackling cross-border crime. At the coordination centre, we are responsible among other tasks, to make sure that within all the operational area all needs are being catered for, meaning that all the officers deployed have the necessary conditions to perform their tasks in the best possible way.”
For Vanessa, it means daily contacts with the EU border guards from the Terra operational area. She gathers and analyses data to transmit them up the Frontex’s hierarchical structure. Joint Operation Terra is huge, it involves 808 officers and plenty of technical equipment. The coordination work done by Vanessa and the colleagues from her team is crucial for the officers in the field to remain fully focused on their professional tasks.