EU DROPS PLAN FOR 10,000 BORDER GUARDS BY 2020

The European Union’s flagship plan for a 10,000-strong bloc-wide border and coastguard force in two years exceeds “what is feasible,” the EU’s Austrian presidency said yesterday. Some EU member states have expressed fears the plan would erode their sovereign right to control national borders while others had concerns about funding a force that the European Commission unveiled in September. “The Commission’s target with these fixed figures [of 10,000] by 2020 actually goes beyond the scope of what is feasible,” Austria’s interior minister Herbert Kickl told reporters. Austria currently holds the six-month rotating presidency of the EU.