Lithuanian Commander of the State Border Guard Service (SBGS), will attend the meeting of the Management Board of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency FRONTEX

General Rustam Liubayev, Commander of the State Border Guard Service (SBGS), will attend the meeting of the Management Board of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency FRONTEX today and Wednesday.

The meeting in Portorož, Slovenia, will cover the situation at the Community’s external borders, the risk analysis to be carried out and the progress and results of the operations coordinated by the Agency. The event will also address current issues of the agency’s activities and management, and exchange other relevant information.

This is the 86th meeting of the FRONTEX Management Board, which includes the heads of the border guards of all EU countries.

Lithuania, which was confronted with an influx of illegal migrants from Belarus, turned to FRONTEX for help in June. The agency, which responded quickly, sent its first representatives as early as July, and in the middle of the same month, for the first time, activated the Rapid Border Intervention mechanism at the eastern borders of the European Union.

At present, Lithuanian border guards are assisted by more than 100 FRONTEX Standing Corps officers, three dozen agency cars are used for patrolling the border, mobile thermal imaging systems, and Latvian and German helicopters are used for aerial reconnaissance of border areas.

The SBGS has been actively cooperating with FRONTEX and has been supporting its activities since the establishment of the Agency in 2004. Lithuanian border guards participate in many FRONTEX-coordinated international operations and training of officials.

The main objectives of FRONTEX are to coordinate the cooperation of the EU Member States in the field of external border management, to help the Member States to train border guards, to improve their qualifications, to establish common training requirements. The Agency also carries out risk analysis and monitors the development of research related to the control of external borders.

FRONTEX’s tasks include assisting EU Member States in cases where operational and technical support is needed at the Community’s external borders, when it comes to organizing joint return operations for illegal immigrants, and so on.