Study on Conferring executive powers on Border Officers Operating at the External borders of the EU

This document presents the results of the Study on the powers of border officers carried out by Unisys for the Directorate General Justice, Freedom and Security of the European Commission. This study has for objective to assess the situation in the 25 EU Member States, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland with respect to the possibility of conferring executive powers on border officers invited to operate at the external EU borders of another state or in the context of joint return enforcement. From there it draws suggestions for possible actions to increase the level of involvement of guest officers to contribute to an integrated management of the external borders. Basic information for this study has been collected through desktop research, face to face interviews with the competent authorities of the 28 involved States and contributions from experts involved in the project, as well as representatives from the European Agency for the management of the external borders (FRONTEX). It was conducted under the supervision of and in coordination with DG JLS.