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