Backdoor Army: No EU ‘Military’ Yet, But Armed ‘Civilian Troops’ in ‘European Uniform’
The European Union (EU) may be expediting its plans for a centralised army with a massive expansion of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), according to the agency’s chief.
“We don’t have a military army, but we will have, let’s say, civilian troops wearing a European uniform. And for certain functions carrying weapons,” said Frontex executive director Fabrice Leggeri slyly, in an interview with POLITICO in Brussels.
These “civilian troops”, who “will be able to deploy to an EU member-state and exercise executive powers such as carrying out border controls”, according to POLITICO, are to be expanded from a modest 750 officials to a 10,000-strong corps — greater than the active manpower of Belgium’s land force.
While it is claimed that this new force will not be able to take control of national borders or use their weapons without the authorisation of the relevant EU member-state, the bloc has rewritten its rules to suit its purposes on the hoof before, such as when it pushed through Eurozone bailouts during the Greek crisis, or when it introduced compulsory migrant redistribution quotas over the objections of governments in Central Europe which, unlike Germany and its allies, opposed opening their borders during the 2015-16 influx from the start.
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