Details of what new powers the Commission is lining up for Frontex are sketchy. Last week, the agency referred our inquiries on this matter to Juncker’s office which declined to comment beyond saying firm proposals are expected by the end of the year.

But the Bureau has discovered that an external evaluation into Frontex undertaken by Danish firm, Rambøll Management Consulting is scheduled to be published next month and should provide clues to the organisation’s future.

It is widely expected that Frontex will be given the legal mandate to co-ordinate search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean and play a far more active role by initiating the return of migrants and failed asylum seekers.

It is also highly likely Frontex’s budget will be further increased having been given two separate increases in the past nine months.

Speculation will also centre on whether the agency will be allowed to directly employ its own border staff and control its own boats, planes and motor vehicles instead of effectively begging member states to lend it resources.

In June last year, the Home Affairs directorate of the European Commission published a “study on the feasibility of the creation of a European System of Border Guards to control the external borders of the Union”.

The report was the result of extensive consultations with Frontex, the European Parliament and members states and highlighted the different goals among them.

It recommended a phased approach to giving the EU full powers over borders, particularly at “hotspots”, over the longer term.

But the authors also reported resistance. The report said: “Whereas both Frontex and members of the European Parliament advocated for a more integrated border management of external Schengen borders with more powers acquired at EU level, Member States were supporting a more careful approach.

“Most of them agreed that the current opportunities provide a number of measures to improve the border control activities and should thus be fully exhausted before taking new initiatives towards further integration.

“In their view, Frontex should perform the supportive and coordination role in joint return operations, training activities and negotiation of readmission agreements.

“They however feel that there is currently neither immediate need nor legal possibilities to shift the responsibility for external EU borders from national to EU level.”

Juncker has decided the time has come for Europe to have a common immigration and border policy with Frontex at its heart.

At the European Parliament last week, Juncker promised to release the money, saying: “The Commission believes this is money well invested. This is why we will propose ambitious steps towards a European Border and Coast Guard before the end of the year.”

At next May’s European Day for Border Guards, it is certain delegates, their experience shaped by the events of 2015, will have firmer ideas on how Frontex should look for the next 10 years.

But whether the latest crisis is enough to make the necessary fundamental shift in thinking at member state level when they already baulk at merely lending equipment is now very much a key question.