Many in Europe are attempting to turn the European border force into a “humanitarian” group, rather than an organisation for enforcing borders, the former agency head has claimed.
The comments were made this week by Fabrice Leggeri, former head of Frontex – the EU’s border enforcement and coast guard agency.
Leggeri, who resigned from his post earlier this year, was speaking in front of the French Senate about accusations that his former organisation had violated fundamental rights by allegedly pushing back migrants who were attempting to cross into Europe.
Frontex has been accused of attempting to prevent alleged asylum seekers from travelling from Turkey to Greece, allegedly preventing migrant landings. The accusations have triggered an investigation by OLAF, the EU’s anti-fraud body. The European Parliament has claimed that Frontex violated the migrants’ human rights by denying them access to Greece.
However, Leggeri said that Frontex had investigated the accusations of migrant pushbacks, and found no evidence that its agents were involved in any human rights violations.
“The mandate of the agency in which I joined as executive director in 2015 is to be a European border police force, which supports member states in border control,” he said according to French broadcaster Public Sénat.
“Some believe that the Agency’s role is to be a body that verifies how the Member States apply fundamental rights at borders. Some would have liked to make it rather an agency that is more concerned with monitoring member states in fundamental rights or a humanitarian agency. But the role of this Agency as the European legislator wanted it is still rather to police the borders of the States.”
The comments echo previous remarks by Liggeri, who said in his resignation letter earlier this year: “I give my mandate back to the management board as it seems that the Frontex mandate on which I have been elected and renewed in June 2019 has silently but effectively been changed.”
Frontex, which monitors the number of illegal immigrants entering the EU, claims that 2022 is experiencing a surge in illegal migration not seen since the 2016 migrant crisis.
Reportedly, 86,000 illegal border crossings into the bloc have been detected since January of this year – an 82% increase from last year. Many of these have been detected in the Mediterranean.
Illegal migrant crossings into EU on the rise, says Frontex#gripthttps://t.co/jSYYRskVaC
— gript (@griptmedia) June 14, 2022
In particular, the island of Cyprus experienced a sharp rise in illegal migration, seeing 213% more crossings than last year.