The EU’s border force Frontex is getting overhauled next Tuesday (27 October) by a European Commission determined to give the Warsaw-based agency a larger role in deportations, more resources, and more agility to deploy.

The Brussels-executive has already proposed increasing the agency’s budget to €12bn, spread out over seven years. The money is being discussed as part of a larger drawn out EU budget fight among EU states.

Budget tussles aside, the commission has already dropped clues into what it wants from the new agency, following demands from its political masters at the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP).

The EPP had wanted to expand the border force to 30,000 from the proposed 10,000. But it is unlikely the 30,000 will be met given the difficulty of finding recruits.

Frontex currently has around 1,250 officers, who are directly employed by the agency. Its standing corps also includes officers provided by member states on long- and short-term assignments. That means they are not all on the Frontex payroll.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, ahead of this month’s EU summit, instead spoke of a “substantial increase” of the Frontex standing corps, without committing to a number.

She also called for European Border and Return Reserve, a Quick Reaction Force for crisis deployment, a Return Coordination Centre to accelerate and improve returns including from foreign states, and social media snooping to gauge any possible Ceuta-like mass arrivals.

The agency is also likely to get more personal data sharing powers with the EU police force Europol.

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A high-ranking EU politician has gone on hunger strike over the humanitarian crisis in besieged Oleshky in Ukraine.

Pina Picierno, an Italian MEP and a vice-president in the EU parliament, told EUobserver she is refusing to eat solid food to draw attention to the besieged Ukrainian town.

Eight kilometres from Kherson, Oleshky is reported to now have 1,700 inhabitants, down from 24,000 people before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The EU says the town is without access to food, medicine, clean water and basic care.

The only route to escape is tapped with mines and rife with attack drones, Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha warned last Saturday (17 October).

Saying that Russia wants to make Oleshky a “death trap”, the Ukrainian minister urged the UN and International Red Cross to secure evacuation corridors and immediate humanitarian access to Oleshky.

“Families are starving, surviving on leftover garden vegetables, preserves and even snails,” he said.

Pope calls Putin over Oleshky

The Vatican has attempted to mediate, with Pope Leo calling last week for Russian president Vladimir Putin to arrange a humanitarian ceasefire to allow in aid. 

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