New Frontex regulation | Even more power for Fortress Europe headquarters

“Return” of asylum seekers organized by Frontex. The EU Commission wants to make the border agency the central service provider for migration defense. This runs counter to a central EU principle. Photo: Frontex As announced, the European Commission presented its proposal for a new Frontex regulation on Tuesday. According to the wishes of Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner, the border agency based in Warsaw is to be expanded into the central office for border surveillance and deportations in the European Union. The plans include expanding Frontex with more staff and strengthening it with new surveillance capabilities.

In the same package, Brunner published a proposal in Brussels for the digitalization of deportation procedures. In accordance with this regulation, Frontex is planning a Europe-wide IT system with a “digital case file” in which national authorities, Frontex and other agencies will manage “repatriations” in the future. It is intended to digitize all processes, from the asylum application to the possible booking of a deportation flight. Every person seeking protection receives a uniform identifier in the “case file”.

The package is now being discussed by the 27 EU states in the Council and Parliament. There is no timetable for this, but the so-called trilogue process is expected to last at least until next summer. First, the two sides must decide on their negotiating position.

The Frontex regulation was last reformed in 2019. It regulates the agency's tasks, powers and equipment. Frontex was founded in 2004 to support member states in monitoring their external borders. However, Frontex is increasingly taking on responsibility itself, for example by setting up a “permanent reserve” with 10,000 officers. This should now be tripled, according to the proposed regulation.

Frontex will act as a “central procurement point” for equipment and new digital instruments. In doing so, the EU is also breaking with the principle that Frontex personnel and vehicles are seconded from the member states.

The “Standing Reserve” includes “Category 1” border police officers who are under direct command of the headquarters and are uniformed and armed by Frontex. According to the plans, “Category 1” will be doubled to 6,000 civil servants. It is the first - and so far only - police force in the Union and, according to Brunner, will now also have a rapid reaction force. Although the new regulation must first be discussed and passed by the Council and Parliament, Frontex has already started setting up this “Quick Reaction Force”.

The agency should also play a larger role in deportations. According to Frontex, the “return center” set up in Warsaw in 2021 supported around 63,500 deportations and “voluntary” returns in 2025, a continuous increase compared to previous years. According to Brunner, the European “repatriation rate” of those seeking protection was more than 30 percent this year and will be around 20 percent by 2025.

The Migration Commissioner does not consider this to be sufficient, which is why the “return center” should be given new powers in accordance with the proposed regulation. So far, Frontex has only been allowed to coordinate and carry out deportations or supposedly voluntary “repatriations” from Schengen states. This restriction should now be lifted. Frontex would then be allowed to carry out deportation flights from Balkan states or other supposedly “safe third countries” to countries of origin.

Such deportation operations in third countries were already provided for in the regulation presented in 2019, but were negotiated out by Parliament. Now the Commission is going even further: the proposal should be understood as meaning that Frontex would also be allowed to carry out deportations from the “return hubs” in third countries – which are also envisaged by Germany. The member states and Parliament agreed on a legal framework for such EU deportation centers four weeks ago. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) stated that a first agreement could be signed with an unnamed third country this year.

The new “Digitization Ordinance” also contains new restrictive measures. The Commission justifies the proposal with around 487,000 exit orders in 2025, of which less than a third were enforced. In the future, those affected will be able to communicate with the authorities and exchange documents using a specially developed app. Frontex can also check compliance with obligations to cooperate. At the end of the procedure, those affected can then receive the exit order on their cell phone.

Frontex also wants to link the information collected using the app and the “digital case file” with other databases from police and migration authorities and use it for “predictive analyses”. The draft regulation lists the use of artificial intelligence in several places, but does not specify it.

The planned transfer of data from the system to third countries before and while rejected asylum seekers are deported is also likely to meet with criticism from refugee solidarity organizations and associations.

The Commission is entering into negotiations with the member states with a proposal for the next multi-year EU budget from 2028 to 2034 worth twelve billion euros for Frontex. This would roughly double the previous multi-year program, which had already increased dramatically. The Irish Presidency recently capped the increase for 2028 to 2034 at 8.9 billion in a negotiating document.

As if Frontex wanted to protest against this, the agency also announced three weeks ago that it would stop funding for the EU reintegration program, which offers people who voluntarily left the country one-off support in their country of origin, this year due to lack of money.

Frontex has been criticized for years for not adequately protecting the rights of refugees and migrants and for covering or even supporting so-called pushbacks by national authorities. The agency was accused of failing to prevent or adequately investigate such incidents in Greece, for example. By passing on information about boats in the Mediterranean, Frontex also ensures that refugees are brought back to Libya, which is known for torture and other serious crimes against migrants.

At a press conference on Monday, non-governmental organizations sharply criticized Frontex's new powers. Josephine Solanki from the Transnational Institute and the Abolish Frontex network spoke of a “surveillance infrastructure with satellite access, a broker of security technology and a deportation agency.”

The draft presented on Tuesday confirms this assessment: Member states should be obliged to report events with potentially significant effects on the EU borders within 24 hours in the Eurosur surveillance system, which has been run by Frontex since 2014 and networks border authorities in all Schengen states.

Sarah Chandler from the organization Equinox referred on Monday to the growing overlap between Frontex and the EU police authority Europol. The border agency is becoming increasingly involved in law enforcement and is weakening its own data protection rules. This was also confirmed on Tuesday: The proposed regulation contains a new “online observation and reaction center” with the express mandate for Frontex to monitor publicly accessible social media content and have it removed. The border agency should be given the status of a “trusted flagger” whose reports must be processed as a priority by internet providers.

Activist David Yambio from Refugees in Libya takes an even harsher stance against Frontex. At the press conference, he called the agency the "long violent arm of Europe." With their help, people are intercepted at sea and brought back to torture camps in Libya, which the EU in turn supports through various agreements. There is no way that those affected can hold European actors accountable. Yambio referred to a case before the European Court of Justice in which the applicant had been stuck in Libya for almost three years.

Last week, the EU Commission admitted in a response to left-wing MP Özlem Demirel that there are still no routines in Libya to document and prosecute state crimes against migrants. The EU had been pushing for the establishment of such an “accountability mechanism” for years, and Libyan authorities had promised this again last year.

»The EU Commission wants to expand Frontex into a European ICE. Frontex is already known today for its involvement in inhumane, illegal and life-threatening practices," explained Left-wing Bundestag member Clara Bünger on Tuesday. The agency should be dissolved and the 12 billion euros targeted by the Commission should instead be invested in civil European sea rescue and municipalities that take in refugees.

At the beginning of August, a three-person film team released the four-part documentary series “Gates of Europe,” which was co-produced by two public broadcasters in the Netherlands, Belgium and Arte. It portrays Frontex director Hans Leijtens. The Norwegian refugee activist Tommy Olsen, who is being persecuted by the Greek justice system and appears as one of Leijtens' opposite characters in the film, which was produced over three years, has now clearly distanced himself. He tried to stop the directors and producers from “whitewashing” things. Together with Refugees in Libya and Front-Lex, Olsen's organization Aegean Boat Report criticizes the finished project.

A screening was planned last week followed by a discussion between Leijten and Yambio, who comes from Sudan and is also portrayed in the film. Green EU MP Tineke Strik and legal scholar Melanie Fink should also take part. However, the event did not take place - probably because the Frontex boss did not want to sit on a podium with the charismatic Yambio, who described the border agency as "murderous". In response to nd's request, the agency said that Leijtens was only prepared for an event in "separate program parts."

Frontex cites the ongoing proceedings before the EU Court of Justice regarding possible pullbacks with the help of the agency in the central Mediterranean, which Yambio's NGO Refugees in Libya initiated together with Front-Lex, as the official reason for the cancellation. Although committed to moderation, Frontex is condescending in its comments on this legal dispute: two years ago a spokesman denounced it as "publicity" to "nd".

Leijtens suggested that we instead have a “private, moderated conversation” with the activist as part of the joint film screening with Yambio, the three directors of “Gates of Europe” Eefje Blankevoort, Els van Driel and Tomas Kaan explained on Monday when asked by nd. However, this would have prevented all perspectives from being presented equally, which is why the event was ultimately canceled.

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