EU Commissioner for Migrations Dimitris Avramopulos has announced that the agreement on the deployment of Frontex in Serbia will be signed today.

Avramopoulos, who arrives in Belgrade this Thursday, explained to the daily Blic that the EU-Serbia agreement on the activities carried out by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) will enable the agency to deploy teams in Serbia to control and the border crossings along with members of the Serbian border police. According to him, this will contribute to better security at EU's external borders and enable better management of illegal migration. "This is another milestone in our successful cooperation with Serbia on border management," Avramopoulos said.

He also emphasized that today's agreement with Serbia comes after the initialing of similar agreements with Albania and Macedonia, and that negotiations on the conclusion of agreements with Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina are under way.

"All of these agreements are based on the same basic principle, always in agreement between the two sides and respecting the specific context of each country. To be clear: these teams will support, not take over the duties and responsibilities of national border services," Avramopoulos said.

He told Blic that Serbia is a key EU partner and that cooperation in the field of security is "really necessary", not only because of border security, but for broader reasons.

See at:https://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2018&mm=09&dd=20&nav_id=105106