{"id":3010,"date":"2024-04-11T10:40:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-11T10:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/captainsupport.net\/freepylos9\/?p=3010"},"modified":"2024-06-17T10:48:45","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T10:48:45","slug":"frontex-a-public-agency-incapable-of-accountabilityfirst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/captainsupport.net\/freepylos9\/frontex-a-public-agency-incapable-of-accountabilityfirst\/","title":{"rendered":"Frontex: a public agency incapable of accountability*First"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

*First Published on Social Europe<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOANNE KRUS<\/a> and GEMMA BIRD<\/a> 11th April 2024<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the movement of people across the Mediterranean has become securitised, Frontex has come to the fore\u2014not to good effect.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"refugees
These asylum-seekers made it to Lesvos but many have been pushed back and the new EU asylum pact approved by the European Parliament yesterday has been condemned by human-rights organisations (Ververidis Vasilis \/ shutterstock.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The shipwreck<\/a> near Pylos last June, one of the greatest modern tragedies in Greek waters, claimed<\/a> more than 600 lives. In its wake, criticism of the operation in Greece of the European Union\u2019s border-security agency, Frontex, reached an all-time high. A recent inquiry<\/a> by the EU ombudsman, Emily O\u2019Reilly<\/a>, into how Frontex acted in search-and-rescue operations criticised the agency for failing to take a \u2018more active role<\/a>\u2019 and concluded that Frontex was ill-equipped to uphold the EU\u2019s values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, the director of Frontex, Hans Leijtens, claimed<\/a> it was a search organisation tasked with securing borders, not a rescue organisation. This was supported by the Greek minister for migration, Dimitris Kairidis of the ruling conservative New Democracy party, who said the organisation should be further strengthened but not in the way suggested by O\u2019Reilly\u2014rather, \u2018in the direction of guarding borders<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Insufficient and inappropriate\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

After the shipwreck, Frontex\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0it would conduct its own investigation, in the form of a \u2018serious incident report\u2019 (SIR), to identify potential\u00a0human-rights violations<\/a>. The SIR was finalised at the beginning of December and revealed at the end of January by the journalist\u00a0Eleonora Vasques<\/a>. The\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0found that the Greek authorities had used \u2018insufficient and inappropriate resources\u2019 to rescue those aboard the Adriana, and had sought to do so only when it was \u2018too late to rescue all the migrants\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To probe how Frontex reports human-rights violations internally, I Have Rights, through a freedom-of-information request, asked the agency for every SIR from the islands of Samos and Lesvos (where it deploys coastal patrol teams) from September 2020 to September 2023. We received 38 SIRs but were told that two additional SIRs could not be made public as they were \u2018subject to ongoing investigations\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frontex\u2019s\u00a0Fundamental Rights Office<\/a>\u2014its role to independently and \u2018effectively monitor the agency\u2019s compliance with fundamental rights\u2019\u2014investigates alleged rights violations. If the office concludes that there have been violations of a \u2018serious nature or that are likely to persist\u2019, under\u00a0article 46<\/a>\u00a0of Frontex\u2019s regulation the agency\u2019s operations in an EU member state can be suspended or even terminated. The effectiveness of the office is however conditioned by the member states, which decide where, when and how Frontex and its rights monitors\u00a0operate<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Frontex\u2019s operating procedures<\/a>, an SIR should be compiled when a \u2018serious incident\u2019 has occurred, such as a violation of human rights or international law. The goal is to \u2018increase the situation awareness\u2019 of Frontex and an SIR can be spur follow-up measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This \u2018situational awareness\u2019 is how Frontex defends its operations and ever-increasing budget, which for 2021-27 rose to almost \u20ac11.3 billion<\/a>. In 2022, Frontex spent \u20ac79 million<\/a> on deportations but only \u20ac2.8 million on fundamental-rights operations. EU funding to Greece for policing, borders and asylum and integration meanwhile massively increased to just over \u20ac1.5 billion<\/a> for the 2021-27 period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pushbacks from Greece<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Out of the 38 SIRs released to I Have Rights, 32 (84 per cent) referred to incidents which involved people on the move attempting to reach Greece and 19 (50 per cent) used the term \u2018pushback<\/a>\u2019. From the 19 pushback-related SIRs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n