Protecting EU borders

Taking part in a conference at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Warsaw last week, US General Ben Hodges observed that “it is presently easier for refugees to move around Europe than it is for military convoys.”

As Slawek Szefs reports, the argument in favor of changing various procedures for getting mandatory clearance from individual member countries derives from the need to enable NATO rapid response forces to react in accordance with their purpose.

Zbigniew Pisarski, president of the Casimir Pulaski Foundation, an independent, non-partisan think-tank specializing in foreign policy and international security, is of the opinion that there should be agreements at EU level.

“If we acknowledge that one of the basic guarantees of European security is US military support, then it's hard to accept that member countries, whose security is to benefit, are themselves making the relocation of units more difficult in practice," he told Polish Radio.