What is the Frontex: the European Border and Coast Guard Agency
Frontex was founded in 2005, shortly after the EU jumped from 15 to 25 members with the accession of the formerly eastern bloc countries the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia as well as Malta and Cyprus.
For more than a decade, an exclusively security-oriented approach has guided European migration policies: restrictive visa issuance, construction of walls and fences, militarized border control and forced return for refugees to their countries of origin, subcontracting migration control to undemocratic States.
During the various amendments and revisions of its mandate, Frontex has become the most financed European agency (302 million budget forecast in 2017), with a growing decision-making and deployment capacity.
Its original mandate was to implement the EU’s external border controls and help out member states with joint operations when a task was too big for any one nation. It deploys border guards and sea patrols where necessary, carries out risk management assessment, coordinates repatriation of illegal immigrants and monitors Europe’s external borders for illegal activity.
Frontex in the Mediterranean
Most of Frontex’s major operations have taken place in the Mediterranean, where thousands have died trying to make the perilous crossing to Europe from northern Africa in recent years. Indeed, according to the Missing Migrants project, it is the most deadly place for migrants in the world.
With Frontex, Europe therefore deploys disproportionate means to fight an enemy that isn’t one: people in migration. Increasingly active within the European Union (notably in hotspots) and beyond, by means of “external cooperation”, the Agency remains immune to any direct accusation despite the many elements engaging, directly or indirectly, its responsibility for the violation of Human Rights.
The establishment of a complaints mechanism since October 2016 is not convincing: this internal procedure remains purely administrative and only imposes disciplinary, not criminal, sanctions for any person deployed during an operation under the direct supervision of Frontex.
The agency’s work is not without its share of criticism, however. In 2008, a group of NGOs presented a statement to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that complained that Frontex’s work was “so broad and, at times, so undiscriminating, that directly and through third countries — intentionally or not — asylum-seekers are being blocked from claiming protection under the 1951 Refugee Convention.”
