Brussels gives mixed signals on Frontex and the Greek scandal – EURACTIV.com

Members of the European Parliament and the Commission had mixed reactions in response to the leaked OLAF report, which revealed human rights abuses by Frontex and Greece.

In December 2020, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) opened an investigation into the EU border agency Frontex, which resulted in the resignation of executive director Fabrice Leggeri in April 2022. The report was confidential until as of October 13, 2022, the date on which it was leak.

The OLAF report documents how Frontex covered up human rights abuses and shows how the agency not only failed to help, but instead intimidated Frontex’s fundamental rights officer and his peers, calling them “leftists”, “Khmer Rouge terrorists”, “not one of them.”

The report also reveals that the Greek authorities systematically order pushbacks and commit human rights violations. The Greek government has repeatedly called the accusations “fake news” and has since publicly attacked journalists, political opponents and NGO members for “embracing Erdogan’s agenda”.

The Commission told EURACTIV it was in contact with the Greek authorities and Frontex to gather more information. They added that Frontex’s mission is to help member states “protect the EU’s common external borders” and “enforce fundamental rights”.

Following several media reports, LIBE, Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee, set up a Frontex Review Working Group (FSWG) to investigate further.

However, some European lawmakers say the bad apples have been eliminated.

“If withholding of information had occurred in individual cases, consequences were taken and those involved either resigned or were disciplined,” said the appointed FSWG chairperson, MP European Lena Dupont of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP). EURACTIV.

Others, however, point to deeper issues with the EU border agency.

“There is a real systemic problem in the structure of the Frontex agency,” the chair of the parliamentary human rights subcommittee (DROI), MEP Maria Arena (S&D), told EURACTIV. “The passivity of the Commission has already allowed Greece to set up a dangerous and violent system for migrants,” she added, also recalling the agency’s estimated budget of 900 million euros per year. .

The Commission is the only European political institution represented on the Frontex board. When asked if they held any political responsibility, EURACTIV received no response.

Reform, dismantle, help?

“We need a strong Agency and a quick decision on its new Executive Director, not sterile, politically motivated debates about dismantling the Agency,” Dupont said.

“Managing such serious mandate reforms – often poorly accompanied and without the necessary legal advice from the European Commission – in such a short time is a herculean task for any agency,” she added.

Social Democrat MEP Arena, meanwhile, said: “Frontex continues to operate in Greece in the same way as it always has”, adding that “the Greek authorities are also responsible for violent pushbacks”.

For Dupont, however, Athens has made progress in establishing a fundamental rights monitoring mechanism “by engaging fundamental rights officers in all relevant public sectors and involving independent bodies”.

However, it is not yet clear whether these measures will be sufficient to ensure compliance by the authorities.

In a report published in May this year, the Greek National Authority for Transparency said “it was not possible to verify the incidents mentioned” in the media reports concerning the pushbacks, because “no evidence or documentation relevant was found”.

(Sofia Mandilara, Sofia Stuart Leeson | EURACTIV.gr)

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