Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Legislation, Security, Transport

"The current proposal is to form the units responding to crises at external borders of member states' existing border guard personnel. We'll try to achieve in the negotiations that the responding units would constitute a supplement to member states' border staff – the future agency would recruit its own staff capable of providing prompt and independent support to member states," head of the Interior Ministry's department for citizenship and migration policy Janek Magi told BNS.

Interior Minister Hanno Pevkur voiced the same opinion last week. "A pan-European reserve would be created which is very good since you never know where and when it will be needed. We too are definitely interested in the existence of such a reserve," he said.

EU leaders last week set a six-month deadline to agree on a joint border and coastguard force in accordance with the proposals the European Commission unveiled on Tuesday.

"The plan foresees that countries with an external border would contribute to the new force 2 percent and countries without an external border 3 percent of their existing personnel. Equipment would be provided in accordance with an agreement between the future agency and member states. Thus it's premature to speak at this point about concrete personnel numbers and technical resources," Magi said in answer to BNS' question about Estonia's contribution.

"In any case, we welcome this initiative and support fast movement forward, because this is obviously a real and important step to protect external borders," he underlined.

According to the European Commission's proposal, the new force would have a standing reserve of 1,500 border guards.