Much has been said this week about the chaos that has taken place at Lisbon airport, not that it is an unprecedented case, but that it has taken on unique contours due to the recent implementation of the new Entry Exit System control system, which is nothing more, for those who don’t know, a European Union system for the automatic monitoring and electronic recording of all border crossings by third country nationals at all border crossings. border of the Schengen Area.
This system provides operational support to the various and consolidated concerns of Member States, aiming to tighten the entry control network, mitigating risks and refining vetting mechanisms, aiming, in this way, to ensure a safe European space.
The Portuguese State, through its Government, has followed this pattern, establishing its total commitment to carry forward this plan, which it has, on many occasions, called a “national design”, which I would call, allow me to be bold, a “European design”.
Now, the greatest pressure is felt, of course, at air borders, where more than 90% of non-EU citizens enter national territory and, with that, the Schengen Area, so it is on the PSP that the lion’s share will fall, yet another, in an area so important for the security panorama.
In fact, it was based on this assumption that the current Government gave the green light to the establishment of a National Unit for Foreigners and Borders in the PSP, which will have, in addition to the indicated competence, the responsibility of processing and processing thousands of coercive removal processes, also ensuring the escort of these citizens, and others expelled by court order, out of national territory.
However, and symptomatic of the usual blame-passing game, Many have unfoundedly attributed responsibility to the PSP for the chaos that has developed at airport borders, particularly due to the lack of sufficient resources to provide an efficient response to the increasing pressure from citizens who (thankfully) choose Portugal as a destination to visit, invest or simply live.
It was based on this assumption, of precariousness in the response, that the period of stay of the last PJ inspectors (formerly Sef), in a special service commission, to support/reinforce the air border was extended, all because, allegedly, a Police cannot do it on their own, [ainda]ensure the entire operation, being severely and unfairly criticized, right from the start, by ANA Portugal, whose concerns have, unfortunately, only been the commercial componentexpecting a more active and contributory role, not only in understanding the Herculean nature of the mission, but also in presenting solutions – reinforcement of assistants to support travelers, creation and/or expansion of control spaces, blurring the concentration of flights at certain times of the day, among others.
But let’s get to the facts, and then we’ll move on to possible solutions that will help, we believe, to mitigate the problem.
1. The PSP, with these new powers, now has an additional need for more than 1500 police officers, and since the expansion of powers, there has not been an increase in the number of admissions, and in fact, a large part of them have been left with vacancies to be filled;
2. The allocation of new “old” resources to this new segment of intervention has deeply drained territorial commands, source of this same provision, especially in the Metropolitan Commands of Lisbon and Porto, which are, as of today, below historical minimum thresholdswhich naturally has repercussions on their ability to maintain levels of response, prevention and visibility that so many would like to have and which are, interestingly, also a goal of this Government – see the recent proposal for a State Budget Law;
3. International airports, especially Lisbon, continue to reach record after record of passengers, without efforts being made to rearrange and size airport structures, in order to adapt them to this growing pressure of visitors;
4. Not only is the pressure greater, but it is concentrated especially in certain periods of the day, with a daily average of more than 2000 passengers arriving every hourfrom 6am to 12pm, and from 4pm to 6pm;
5. The number of control boxes remains exactly the same as the SEF had before the transition, which, it is understood, leaves little room for being able to do more with it, adding the new rules and control system that will naturally add some more time to each citizen’s control;
6. Much of the pressure felt at entry peaks has, to our knowledge, been mitigated with use of the simplified control mechanism that it should be used in a completely exceptional way so as not to jeopardize the rigor of the control and, ultimately, the safety of the operation;
7. In addition to the previous mitigation measure, which is wrong in our opinion, the Command structures of the PSP have been forced to allocate other police resources allocated to airport securityinterior and exterior, to meet the needs at the border, ie, uncovering on one side to cover on the other as they say in slang;
8. The Police Officers who are now assigned to this new competence have specialized training, and are saturated as they are having to extend their hours, without any additional compensation, in order to maintain response levels, especially during these critical periods.
Once this framework is in place, it becomes clear why we are talking about an almost impossible mission, which is not impossible, for now, at the expense of the excessive effort that the Police and the PSP Command structures of these subunits have made to maintain control at the border.
What to do is the question that arises. From then on it becomes It is unbearable to continue to deplete the structure of territorial units, affecting their already scarce resources at the border, under penalty of putting populations at serious riskremembering that if more people enter, we will also have more people, and more pressure, on the streets. If we further dismantle the little police we have, it’s a good idea to see and anticipate what will happen.
What is needed is to provide the PSP with the capacity to be more managerially flexible in the management of its resources, and this can only be done, as happens in other sectors of the administration, with the payment of overtime/overtime, so that it can adjust the more robust and broader response to peak passenger periods.
We don’t always need more resources, we need more resources at certain times of the day, and this exceptional tool allows the PSP Command to adapt and reinforce its operational teams. This happens, for those who don’t know, in the PJ (to respond to investigative needs), in the Prison Guard Corps (to meet the constant needs in prisons), in INEM and Hospital Emergencies (to shorten response times when providing aid) and [até] at AIMA (to increase the response rate to the thousands of legalization processes that are pending).
The answer exists, the solution has been applied for a long time (SEF itself reinforced airports during periods of greatest annual/seasonal pressure, with 100% payment of subsistence allowances, averaging between €1000 and €1500 per inspector)and let’s not have any doubts, if we want to answer this problem, the answer will come here. What we don’t understand is the Government’s resistance to doing what must be done, which will help it fulfill the much-acclaimed national goal.