A group of 30 officers of the Polish Border Guard has started a support deployment, within the scope of providing protection for the Slovenian and Croatian borders. The operation is going to involve information transfer, pertaining the situation on the external border of the European Union, for the Slovenian police. Secondly, the Polish officers are going to directly support the border authorities in patrol and observation tasks, as well as within the scope of general enforcement of the public policy in the terrain located up to 20 kilometres from the Croatian border, in the operational region that is placed under the jurisdiction of the Slovenian police stations, including: Brežice, Dobova and Obrežje.
As it is stressed by the spokeswoman for the Polish Border Guard, st. chor. Agnieszka Golias, the deployment is being realized on the basis of the agreement signed between the Polish and Slovenian authorities. A similar operation has been carried in Hungary, since November until December last year.
Prior to their deployment to Slovenia, the Polish officers had been involved in a training programme, covering the use and application of the firearms and means of direct coercion. Due to the nature of the undertaken activities (within the framework of the physical protection of the borders, not focused exclusively on observation or administration), the officers shall have an option of using direct coercion at their disposal.
Read More: Polish Border Patrol Units In Hungary
The operations are going to last until 4th February this year. According to the Border Guard, the deployment is going to involve 30 Border Guard officers, including the detachment commander who, on a daily basis, works at the Border Guard’s HQ, Specialized Training Border Guard Officer, 12 Officers of the Maritime Unit and 16 members coming from Podlasie, Bug, Silesia/Lesser Poland and Oder Units of the Border Guard.
Today, 25 other officers of the Border Guard have also been sent to the Greek island of Lesbos, in order to support the Greek Border Authorities in the process of verifying and registering the documents and recording the fingerprints of the foreigners coming to the island. The Greek operations are going to be continued in February and March. Contrary to the Slovenian deployment, the Greek one is organized by the Frontex EU agency.
The operations carried out by the Polish Border Guard’s in Slovenia and Greece are related to the inflow of the immigrants, coming from the Middle East, who get to the Greek islands sailing mainly from Turkey. Then, following the so called Balkan route, through Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, they reach Austria, Germany or the Scandinavia. The pressure inflicted on the Slovenian border has been increased, starting from the moment when the Hungarians have created the fence, separating them from the territory of Serbia. The efforts undertaken by the authorities of the Western states and the EU so far, in order to rectify the situation, have been ineffective. The threat posed by uncontrolled inflow of thousands of immigrants from the Middle East is still in existence.