Migration Commissioner open to EU finance for border walls and fences

The European Commissioner for Home Affairs has left the door open to use of EU money to finance barriers at the bloc’s external borders.

“Following the trends observed in the last years, it is clear that the overall needs for border management must be reassessed as part of the preparation also of the next multiannual financial framework,” Austrian Magnus Brunner told an almost empty plenary session of Strasbourg’s European Parliament on Thursday.

Brunner guaranteed that the Commission will take border management needs into account “in a holistic manner”, whilst always ensuring proportionate measures and respect for fundamental rights.

The debate came in response to an call for action to the European Commission put forward by several MEPs from the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group.

It asked the Commission to “recognise the reality on the ground at the EU’s external borders” and “support member states’ external border barrier projects financially via the EU budget”.

The Commission was not able to answer within a prescribed time limit of six weeks, triggering a debate in the European Parliament under rules of procedure, debate proponent Estonian MEP Jaak Madison told Euronews.

“The funding of border fences is in our common interest, especially when we talk about the defence questions, the fighting against illegal migration, human trafficking and terrorist threats,” he said.

The ECR has increasingly painted construction of walls at EU borders as a means of countering so-called “hybrid threats” by Russia or Belarus against Finland, Sweden, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania. 

“It’s pretty tough or impossible to fight against the hybrid attacks by Russia if you don’t have a physical border,” Madison argued, as Russian and Belarusian authorities are accused of encouraging and actively promoting irregular crossings at EU borders.

A contentious issue

The EU currently finances mobile and stationary units, border surveillance systems and equipment, through an instrument designed to offer financial support for border management and visa policy. 

Brunner noted that the Commission has recently backed this up by granting a further €170 million to EU countries bordering Russia and Belarus. 

But the EU has never permitted use of common funds to pay for border protection structures such as walls, fences or other barriers. 

Member States like Poland, Hungary, Estonia and Latvia typically self fund such structures, but have called for EU funding in recent years, with 12 countries lodging an official request to the Commission on the issue in 2021.

Their demands might now be moving a step closer to being met. Commissioner Brunner said that in the reassessment process “the views of the European Parliament are incredibly important”, though political group positions on the topic are at variance. 

Right wing forces are strongly in favour, with the European People’s Party (EPP) more and more attracted to the idea, as attested by interventions from MEPs Kinga Kollár (Hungary) and Riho Terras (Estonia) in today’s debate.

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“I think that the red lines are changing very often,” quipped ECR MEP Madison. “[Ursula] von der Leyen is a pretty big opportunist. She’s following the public mindset, and how it’s changing in European governments,” he said.

He is convinced if Friedrich Merz wins the forthcoming election for the German Chancellery for the centre-right CDU party in Germany, he will adopt a harder line on migration than Germany currently takes in the EU Council, and wield “a huge influence on the EPP” in Brussels.

Leftist parties oppose the idea, arguing it will not provide any benefits while endangering migrants’ human rights.

“It does not make any sense. If you pull up a wall, another migratory route will open. We have seen how sea patrolling policies, for example, have moved people from one route of the Mediterranean to another: when you start to block people in the central Mediterranean, the Atlantic route opens,” Italian socialist MEP Cecilia Strada told Euronews. 

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The Greens/EFA and The Left groups are similarly minded, while the liberal Renew Europe group appears at odds over the issue.

“Statistics show that building walls is not useful and it’s against our European DNA,” French liberal MEP Fabienne Keller said during the debate. 

By contrast her Lithuanian liberal counterpart Petras Auštrevičius advocated for EU financing of barriers in “a sense of solidarity” towards Eastern EU countries. 

“The countries having borders with those aggressive States simply overspent their budgets protecting other Member States,” Auštrevičius told Euronews in Strasbourg. 

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The current Multiannual Financial Framework allocates € 6.7 billion for border management and visa policy within the 2021 to 2027 period.