Want to know what Europe does for you? Welcome to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcast on the protection of the EU's external borders.

Securing the EU's external borders is crucial to allow citizens to move freely within the Schengen area while keeping them safe, but the migration crisis exposed serious flaws.

Prompting the EU to come up with a series of measures to address these deficiencies

and better secure its borders.

Want to know more? Stay with us.

On a continent where nations once shed blood to defend their territories,

today borders only exist on maps and citizens can move friendly from one country to another.

The Schengen area, which consists of 22 EU member states, along with Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland,

is encircled by over 42,000 kilometres of sea borders and close to 8,000 kilometres of land borders.

Securing these external borders is paramount to maintaining

internal security along with freedom of movement. So how does the EU do that? Well, the Schengen

Borders Code lays down common rules on external border crossings. It says who can come in and for

how long and introduces increased checks on all people crossing the EU's external borders to ensure they do not

pose a security risk for fellow citizens.

But the central pillar of the EU's integrated border management is the European border

and coast guard composed of the EU borders agency, Frontex and national border authorities

working together on border surveillance issues.

To be more effective in the fight against cross-border crime and to better secure Europe's

external borders, national authorities and EU agencies such as Frontex, Europol and Eurojust,

share information through among others, the Schengen information system, the visa information

system and the European fingerprint database, Eurodac.

Now, how do these systems work?

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