The European border guard organization Frontex has made mistakes. This is the conclusion of a European Parliament committee after four months of investigation.
Frontex has long been under fire for its possible involvement in pushbacks, sending migrants away before they reach the borders of the European Union. There have been many stories about this recently. Several countries on the European external borders are guilty of this.
Frontex, which has to guard Europe’s external borders, falls under the responsibility of the countries where it patrols. According to the committee, it has happened that Greece sent ships from Frontex so that the Greek coast guard could send boats with migrants back to Turkey.
“As a result, the Frontex people deliberately took the risk that human rights were being violated,” said MEP Tineke Strik, who drafted the report. The GroenLinks politician wants Frontex to stop being so easily dismissed. Because of its passive attitude, the organization is co-responsible, she says. “Frontex knew about a number of things, but did too little about it.”
Criticism of director Leggeri
The committee also looked at Frontex’s internal organization. It was found that the leadership repeatedly ignored warnings about Frontex involvement in human rights violations. Internal signals and signals from human rights organizations were not listened to.
Director Fabrice Leggeri is accused of mismanagement and poor communication. “It seemed that he didn’t want to take human rights seriously,” Strik says. GroenLinks wants Leggeri to resign, but Parliament is not about that. Only the member states could expel the Frenchman.
The report will be presented to Parliament tomorrow morning. The Commission of Inquiry wants the situation at Frontex to improve quickly.
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