Juncker favours FYROM over Greece on EU borders issue

"I welcome your suggestion," Juncker wrote to Slovenia's Prime Minister Miro Cerar, assuring him of the Commission's support for his plan for all EU countries to "provide assistance to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia authorities to support controls on the border with Greece through the secondment of police/law enforcement officers, and the provision of equipment." POLITICO saw a copy of the letter.

As FYROM isn't a member of the EU, Juncker said EU countries would have to reach bilateral agreements with the government in Skopje to dispatch police to the border with Greece. The rules in place for the EU's border protection agency only allowed for missions within the EU, not for the "deployment of officers in the framework of a Frontex joint operation on the territory of a third country."

Juncker's proposals for strengthening Frontex, made last December, would address this "shortcoming," as Juncker said, and pave the way for Frontex missions outside EU territory.

In the letter, Juncker said countries along the Western Balkan migration route, whether EU members or not, must stop "waving through refugees without informing a neighbouring country," which is "not acceptable."

Greek minister for migration, Ioannis Mouzalas, told the Financial Times Monday that Athens had not been consulted on the Slovenian plan. "We do not intend to become a cemetery of souls here. We cannot understand what kind of policy it is that a country would close its borders with Greece," Mouzalas said.

Source: Politico