European Leaders Struggle with Wave of Tunisian Migrants

[yvi]

The arrival of thousands of Tunisian refugees on the shores of the Italian island of Lampedusa this week has alarmed Italian authorities and sparked an anguished debate in Germany and the rest of the EU over how to respond.

More than 5,000 Tunisian immigrants, the majority of them young men, have arrived in Italy in the past five days, just one month after protests brought down Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

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Comments

[acari]

Just read at tagesschau.de they will send in Frontex.

[yvi]

Hmm, interesting. I hope they don't do anything stupid.

[the_future_modernes]

what's Frontex?

[yvi]

The European external border security agency. They mostly deal with the Eastern border I suppose, and I haven't heard much from them in that regard, actually, because ususally, the EU states deal with their own borders.

But it looks like Frontext sometimes does bad things so let#s hope this isn't a sign of it taking a turn for the worse.

[acari]

I think they got sent to Greece last year or so. Remember that whole "let's build a wall between us and Turkey" business recently?

You get quite a few hits when you google "fortress europe and frontex" especially to do with the southern EU borders of Spain and Italy.

[the_future_modernes]

thanks!

[acari]

Ah, sorry. there was supposed to be a link there. Here you go: http://www.frontex.europa.eu/

It's basically the EU's border security agency. Member states are responsible for their borders, Frontex is coordinating multi-state operations.

[the_future_modernes]

thanks!