Frontex scandal:the executive director resigns, but the agency's problems remain

The recent ones resignation of the executive director of Frontex, Fabrice Leggeri, represent only the last piece of a mosaic of complaints, journalistic investigations And investigations on the work of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, accused of very serious violations of human rights.

The step back of the 54-year-old French politician, head of the agency since 2015, would have been due to contents of a report confidential of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).The investigation, reportedly from an internal Frontex source, “identifies precise responsibilities of the agency and Leggeri for some rejections that occurred in Greece” and indicates “a direct link between the meeting in which the disciplinary measures were to be decided and Leggeri's resignation”.

The Director General of OLAF, Ville Itälä, commenting on the investigation with some MEPs, he would have defined Leggeri as "disloyal towards the EU” and responsible for a “poor staff management”.

European sources present at a closed-door hearing of Itälä before the budgetary control (CONT) and civil liberties (LIBE) committees of the European Parliament they speak Of "at least three people involved in human rights violations“.Violations that “involve Frontex leadership” and show “strong indications that they were committed on purpose”.

A picture already partially emerged last July, when the "Report on the fact-finding investigation into Frontex relating to alleged violations of fundamental rights”.The group of MEPs led by the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament was established to verify the alleged involvement of the agency in illegal pushbacks of migrants and asylum seekers at the external borders of the Union.

The reports highlights “shortcomings in the agency's monitoring mechanisms in reporting and assessing the fundamental rights situation” and accuses Leggeri of not having involved the person responsible for fundamental rights and the Consultative Forum – body that brings together institutions and civil society organizations to provide support to the agency in matters of fundamental rights – repeatedly ignoring their requests.

A management so opaque that it pushed a senior Frontex official to state in ainterview given to The Outlaw Ocean Project that the agency was no longer confident that Frontex was fulfilling its most essential obligation:ensure that the rights of the world's most vulnerable people were respected.For the source "The influence of politics is a problem when dealing with fundamental human rights" And "Even if its participation in the repatriation of migrants to Libya is indirect, Frontex may be violating EU lawAnd".

In a relationship of May 2021 entitled Crimes by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex in the Central Mediterranean Sea, the NGO Sea Watch explains how aerial reconnaissance allows Frontex to collect information on boats in danger and communicate it to the "competent authorities", without having to personally take care of the rescue.

When he spots a boat in the Libyan search and rescue zone (SAR, search and rescue) the agency only informs the so-called Libyan coast guard, ignoring nearby commercial or NGO vessels.“Frontex coordinates and facilitates the illegal interceptions and pushbacks of those in danger in Libya, thus achieving the EU's primary objective of preventing people from reaching Europe safely.Bringing them back to Libya means returning them to a place where they are exposed to serious human rights violations and constitutes an infringement of international law”, reports Sea Watch.

As explained by Professor Giuseppe Campesi, professor at the Department of Political Sciences of the Aldo Moro University of Bari,

Frontex is part of an overall plan which is to implement a strategy that leverages the collaboration of third countries, such as Türkiye, or third-country agencies, such as the so-called Libyan coast guard, not so much to reject but to bring back migrants headed towards the European Union, limiting as much as possible the direct intervention of national agencies or indeed of Frontex itself.So let's say that the Agency has tried, as far as possible, not to carry out rejections directly but has actively collaborated by offering logistical support and cooperation in 'pull-back' activities [delegated rejection, ed.] carried out by the agencies of the third countries with which we cooperate.This is an overall strategic plan on which all member countries agree in a certain sense and which Frontex also contributes to implementing.

It fits into this policy of "externalization of borders" the agreement that the European Union he is negotiating with Senegal to deploy Frontex men in the West African country.It would be the agency's first mission outside Europe and on the territory of an African state, with armed troops and equipped with surveillance equipment.

It is also to tackle missions of this kind that the agency has seen its operations grow considerably budget from 6 million in 2005 to 754 in 2022, while last year saw the debut of standing corps of the European Border and Coast Guard.For the EU, this is the first European uniformed service.In total, by 2027 there will be 10,000 units tasked with border surveillance, as well as registering, identifying and screening irregular migrants crossing borders.3,000 border guards will be hired directly by Frontex and the other 7,000 agents will be seconded from EU member states.

Frontex can count on a budget of approx 5.6 billion euros until 2027. According to one study of 22 NGOs Europeans, the creation of a search and rescue program in the Mediterranean Sea – the deadliest migratory route in the world with 24,000 dead and missing from 2014 to today – would require only a third of the budget that the EU grants to Frontex operations.

The priority of the agency are very different from those of the NGOs that save lives at sea, as is evident by observing the use that Frontex makes of its huge budget, the 22 European organizations write:from 2015 to 2021, compared to 100 million euros spent on aerial vehicles to be used in its operations (including surveillance drones), there was no investment in the acquisition or leasing of maritime assets.Very clear in this regard words by Leggeri:“We respect the procedures, but we are not a human rights body, nor a humanitarian agency”.

In 2020 Frontex used the funds at its disposal for the purchase of ships, vehicles, aircraft, drones and radars.Between 2017 and 2019, according to the relationship “Lobbying Fortress Europe.The making of a border-industrial complex” by the Corporate Europe Observatory, the agency met with 138 private entities (including 10 research centers and think tanks and only one NGO).Five meetings with the Italian defense company Leonardo. 

Another interesting aspect of the report is the relationship between Frontex and lobbyists.During the process of approving the agency's budget for 2016, MEPs asked Frontex how it handled meetings with lobby groups.Frontex responded that it had "only met the lobbyists listed in the European Union Transparency Register and there had been no meetings in 2017”. 

An answer contradicted by the information present in the Frontex files.In 2017 alone, the agency had organized at least four meetings and of the 24 private entities that took part in these meetings - mostly companies - over half (14) were not registered in the EU Transparency Register.

But the discrepancies don't end there.In 2018 and 2019, 72% (91 out of 125) of all lobbyists encountered by Frontex were not registered in the EU Transparency Register.

In Italy the agency launched one last year collaboration with the Polytechnic of Turin through a four million euro tender for the production of maps and infographics "to support the activities" of Frontex.

THE'agreement signed between the Inter-University Department of Territorial Sciences, Projects and Policies (DIST) of the Polytechnic of Turin, Ithaca Srl and Frontex found in Michele Lancione, full professor of political-economic geography, a fierce opponent:

The problem here is not only in the type of data that Ithaca and my Department will provide to Frontex.Researchers involved in the project say it is open source, harmless data.Given that no data is ever harmless, the question lies in lending one's name - individual and institutional - to the legitimation of the work of an agency like Frontex.Because that's what you do when you collaborate:we help the violent and expulsive apparatus of the European Union to legitimize itself, to clothe itself in scientific objectivity, to reduce everything to a technical question that reproduces its evil by reducing it to a passing of papers between hands.In Europe, history should have taught us something in this sense, but clearly we have learned nothing.

Despite Lancione's protests and one open letter Of activists and campaigners committed to the defense of the human rights of migrant people, on 14 December 2021 the academic Senate of the university resolved to sign the contract with Frontex, introducing a "clause binding that specifies the commitment of both the teaching staff involved and the client to act in compliance with respect for human and fundamental rights of people, as well as the principles of research integrity”. 

On March 18 Lancione has written to the Magnificent Rector, the Vice-Rector, the members of the Academic Senate, the Director and the Deputy Directors of the DIST to "ask for clarity on that famous clause which should bind the Polytechnic and Frontex respect for human rights".“Nobody ever answered me”, says a Blue suitcase.

Among the signatories of the open letter addressed to the Polytechnic there is also Baobab Experience, one of the organizations that are part of Abolish Frontex, a decentralized and autonomous network of groups and individuals who are not interested in reforming or improving Frontex.The criticism of the policies and system that keep the agency afloat is radical, as is the ultimate goal:build a society where people are free to move and live.

“We have come to know the realities that are part of Abolish Frontex in Italy in these years of activism in Como, Ventimiglia, Trieste and on the borders of the so-called Fortress Europe.In my experience, this is the first time an attempt has been made to collectively counter the work of this agency”, explains a Blue suitcase Andrea Costa, president of Baobab Experience.

Coast, returned a month ago from a humanitarian mission on the border between Moldova and Ukraine, faced a trial for aiding and abetting illegal immigration, risking up to 18 years in prison.Six years ago, together with other Baobab volunteers, he helped eight Sudanese boys and a Chadian boy reach the Red Cross camp in Ventimiglia after the eviction of the reception center in Via Cupa, behind the Tiburtina railway station.He was acquitted because "the fact does not exist".

“For this conduct, Andrea Costa was compared by the prosecution to the many traffickers who operate with impunity in Italian stations and who make them pay dearly for that ticket, even with their lives, who sell false documentation at the price of an illusion and speculate on the fragility of people abandoned to themselves”, reconstructed Baobab in a communicated.

Costa remembers that in 2021, 67,000 migrants arrived in Italy and most did not stop in Italy. “In the last two months they have arrived approximately chundred thousand people from Ukraine.This time there was no cry of invasion and we are happy, but as far as we are concerned there wasn't an invasion before either”.

“Frontex does not limit itself to raising walls, it pushes a lot on the criminalization of solidarity and all the people we meet with our defenses on Balkan route or in Italian cities they are forced to do what they do also because of this agency”, explains Costa.And it is this awareness that motivates the activities of the groups and individuals who have joined Abolish Frontex.

Preview image:Mstyslav Chernov/Unframe, CC BY-SA 4.0, go Wikimedia Commons