The European Union is planning to significantly reinforce the Frontex border service as part of its migration policies and deploy its personnel in the Western Balkans, Radio Deutsche Welle has reported but a Serbian Internal Affairs MInistry official says no agreement has been reached yet.

The EU is planning to  the station said.  

It quoted European Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos who told a German newspaper that that an agreement has been reached to deploy Frontex personnel in Serbia, Macedonia and Albania to assist in the duties of the border police in those countries.  

Deutsche Welle said that it did not get confirmation of the agreement in Belgrade but recalled that European Commissioner Johannes Hahn said in July that negotiations were underway to allow Frontex to deploy its personnel in Serbia and Macedonia.  Frontex would deploy armed personnel supported by aircraft and boats.

The Deutsche Welle report was denied by Zoran Lazarov, head of the international cooperation and European affairs sector at the Serbian Internal Affairs Ministry. “I want to stress that an agreement between Serbia and EU, implemented by Frontex, has not been signed,” he said in a written statement to the media, adding that an agreement would first have to be initialled before being signed and would then be submitted to parliament for ratification before implementation.

Lazarov said that Frontex personnel could only work with the Serbian police if they are deployed on Serbia’s borders and their role would be to protect the borders from migrants.

Deutsche Welle said that Frontex would take over asylum procedures when called to do so by EU member states in expectation of a large number of refugees. The final decision on granting or refusing asylum would remain with the individual countries.