Safe-Guarding Accountability and Fundamental Rights Compliance of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex – Policy Brief

RESPOND Policy Brief [2021/19]

Authors: Lena Karamanidou - Glasgow Caledonian University | Bernd Kasparek - University of Göttingen

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY  

The European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex is currently undergoing intense scrutiny. An investigation of its own Management Board did not fully clear the Agency from alleged involvement in pushbacks – illegal returns that violate human rights under international and EU law, including of the non-refoulement principle of the Geneva Refugee Convention – at the Greek-Turkish maritime border in the Aegean. At the time of writing, four separate investigation into Frontex are ongoing. The European Ombudsperson launched an own-initiative inquiry into the Agency’s complaints mechanism[1] and is investigating a complaint by an MEP related to the non-disclosure of requested documents[2]. The LIBE-Committee of the European Parliament has created a Frontex Scrutiny Working Group that has recently started its work and is expected to report its findings in the summer of 2021. The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) is also investigating allegations of mismanagement and harassment as well as pushbacks.

While the existence of multiple investigations is noteworthy by itself, the breadth of the allegations needs to be highlighted. Although the alleged involvement in or cover-up of pushbacks may be the most striking one, there are equally serious allegations of the Agency having actively thwarted the hiring process for the 40 Fundamental Rights Monitors as mandated by Regulation (EU) 2019/1896, deep flaws in the hiring process for the standing corps, misuse of funds and the existence of a toxic workplace environment at the Agency’s headquarters in Warsaw, Poland.

These wide-ranging allegations have yet to be proven or disproven as the investigations are still pending. Yet, given that current investigations are scrutinising not only the Agency’s fundamental rights compliance but also human resource management, compliance with European law, budgetary compliance and transparency, it appears that the design of this European agency has contributed to its operational deficiencies.

In 2019 and 2020 and prior to the the aforementioned allegations becoming public, we conducted research into the accountability and transparency practices of the Agency. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, analysis of documents obtained under Freedom of Information requests to the Agency or otherwise available publicly, and interviews with members of the Agency’s own Consultative Forum and Press Office, regional police directors, journalists and NGOs, we analysed the existing six fundamental rights monitoring and accountability mechanisms of the Agency.

We concluded that these mechanisms, introduced since 2011 and gradually strengthened over time, still fail to guarantee fundamental rights compliance and accountability in cases of violations. We therefore recommend that these structural shortcomings should be urgently addressed through a reform of the Agency’s mandate and their subsequent implementation be monitored externally.

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