The German MEP has pledged to double the number of staff at Europol, the EU’s crime-fighting agency, if he succeeds Jean-Claude Juncker as Commission president. Mr Weber will seek to hire over 1,000 more Europol agents and “turn it into a European FBI, where joint investigation teams combine all information on offenders and radicalised persons”. The new-look crime-fighting agency will be announced as part of the German’s campaign pitch tonight, which will focus on creating more a secure, digital and “kind” Europe.

The European FBI “will enable our national police focuses to catch terrorists before they can carry out a first strike against our citizens”, according to campaign literature set to be unveiled later today in Athens.

Mr Weber’s effort to secure the Continent’s borders will also see 10,000 new staff hired for the EU’s Border and Coast Guard by 2022, five years earlier than the bloc’s governments have previously agreed.

His manifesto reads: “By 2022, we will equip the European Border and Coast Guard with at least 10,000 new officers and the latest technology, including drones, with a direct right of intervention along our common borders.

“We put a definite stop to the cynical business of smugglers and human traffickers.”

Mr Weber is so-called Spitzenkandidat of the centre-right European People’s Party, which Mr Juncker also belongs to.

Under the Spitzenkandidat process, each party in the European Parliament nominates a candidate for Commission chief and the one that forms the largest group after the election has the right to put forward their candidate to the top job.

He has also pledged to develop a “European master plan against cancer”, which “pools all our talents, knowledge and resources” to fight the illness.

He aims to “address what really matters to out citizens, what makes a difference to lives”.

The German will officially launch his campaign at Zappeion Megaron, the building where Greece signed its EU accession treaty.

But Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras has pledged to oppose Mr Weber becoming Commission chief.

Mr Tsipras said: “Voting for Weber means a vote in the transformation of democratic Europe into an authoritarian Europe, into a racist Europe.”

Last month, the Greek leader said it would be a “disaster” if Mr Weber was made the EU’s most senior official.

At a gathering of Europe’s left-wing leaders, Mr Tsipras said: “all progressive forces should agree that we have a responsibility and obligation to prevent the election of the extreme neoliberal and ultra-right Bavarian politician Manfred Weber to the presidency of the European Commission.

“Such a development would formally mark the collaboration between the right with the far-right, that would be disastrous for the future of Europe.”

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