Frontex Heightens Presence in Greece to Deal with Migrant Influx

The EU agency for external borders, Frontex, heightened its presence in Greece in order to support the country in dealing with the unprecedented number of migrants arriving on its islands.

This was done by launching the Poseidon Rapid Intervention on Monday, which replaces the Joint Operation Poseidon Sea with a larger number of officers and technical equipment.

Poseidon Rapid Intervention will take place in the same operational area, putting greater focus on security checks.

According to the operational plan agreed on December 17, the deployment will gradually increase to 376 officers and interpreters on the ground.

Among them will be experts in screening, debriefing, fingerprinting and forged documents from various EU member states and Schengen associated countries.

The screening officers help authorities to identify the nationality of incoming migrants, while debriefing experts gather information about the activities of smuggling networks.

There are plans for several vessels also to take part in Poseidon Rapid Intervention.

The participation in Frontex Joint Operations is voluntary, but member states are obliged to send border guards and technical equipment for the rapid deployment, unless countries are themselves facing exceptional circumstances.

The additional deployment will help in accelerating the process of registration on the Greek islands and allow for the speedier fingerprinting of a larger number of migrants.

Officers will also support security checks by consulting national and European databases and cooperating with screening, debriefing and fingerprinting experts.

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