Ilkka Laitinen, Frontex Executive Director since May 2005. Born on 22 August 1962, he has dealt with border control issues both on national and European level for the past 30 years. In his home country Finland, he has reached the rank of Brigadier General. He started his career with the Finnish Border Guard working on the border with the USSR. He later joined the Finnish Permanent Representation to the EU in Brussels and was heavily involved in the performance of Schengen evaluations. He was co-chairman of the FRONTIERS Council Working Party and a director of the EU Risk Analysis Centre.

Ilkka Laitinen frequently travels between Warsaw and Helsinki, where he enjoys spending time with his family and participating in sports activities.

ILLEGAL MIGRATION, PREVENTIVE MEASURES FROM THE EU PERSPECTIVE

1. Preventing illegal border crossings is a challenge for all modern states. Border management revolves mainly around combating illegal migration but also the closely linked problem of trafficking in human beings, and cross-border crime taking different shapes such as, for example, terrorist activity, smuggling drugs, weapons or dangerous substances.
2. These phenomena is known in most countries but the way of managing the border in EU is unique. Twenty nine European countries, EU Member States and associated countries, are part of so-called ‘Schengen area’.
3. In order to make the border permeable to legitimate flow of passengers, and as impermeable as possible to illicit activity, a proper frame for integrated border security has been created in 2006. The European Council endorsed an exhaustive model of integrated border management (the IBM). Border control being one of main elements of this concept should be seen only as an instrument promoting crime prevention and leading to inter-agency co-operation.

4. Awareness is the key to efficient border management. Member States provide Frontex with information and intelligence allowing us to perform risk analysis, gain a European-level situational picture and uncover smuggling and trafficking routes and new modi operandi used by criminal networks. Awareness defined by Frontex is not only the knowledge of what is happening beyond the border and inland.

5. Once we know the picture we can prepare a proper response, preventive measures or measures addressing specific challenge in one or more Member States. Coordination of operational cooperation between Member States in the field of management of external borders is the key task of Frontex.

6. Achieving interoperability is yet another goal for Frontex. The agency aims to be the central player for promoting harmonisation of doctrines, needs, operational and administrative procedures, and technical solutions supporting effective management of the EU external borders.
7. Frontex’s response in this regard is the application of three elements: (i) assessing threats and risks, (ii) managing joint operations, as well as (iii) building intellectual, operational and physical capacity.