Europa’s Afrikabeleid militariseert

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EOS also proposed that Frontex should be responsible for the worldwide procurement of military technology that can be used to monitor the borders of the whole of Europe. Frontex needs "aerial visualization", said EOS. And if you lift your eyes to the sky: drones. “Frontex paid over 200,000 euros to arms companies to come and demonstrate their drones. In 2011 it was still controversial, but nowadays they are used everywhere along the border" says Danish researcher Martin Lemberg-Pedersen, Assistant Professor at Global Refugee Studies at Aalborg University, Denmark. Frontex began their drone surveillance over the Mediterranean in 2018, in collaboration with the European Maritime Safety Agency. But drones do not save people. The pilots watch powerlessly from their control rooms miles away from the sea. Planes and drones far above the sea have replaced the EU rescue ships sailing the Mediterranean to pick up drowning people until March this year . "This investment comes at a time when the EU is withdrawing its naval missions in the Mediterranean and other rescue operations are hampering work," the British newspaper The Observer writes this week. "Frontex’s surveillance drones are flying over the territorial waters of Libya where no one has been rescued since last August. Boats that can save people are being replaced by drones that cannot” the newspaper writes. According to Martin Lemberg-Pedersen, this is the logical consequence of pressure from the security industry. "Politicians look for a technological fix to a political issue. And that fix is offered as a ready-made solution by the security companies," says the Danish researcher.