The EU Commission is planning a massive expansion of Frontex

According to a five-point plan to upgrade the EU's external borders, a new regulation by the EU border agency Frontex is to be presented on Tuesday. Sea-Watch accuses the authority of serious human rights violations

On October 27th, the European Commission plans to present a proposal for a new regulation for the EU border agency Frontex. This is intended to further expand the EU agency, which is already the most financially powerful, to play a larger role in deportations, to significantly increase its staff and to expand its supervisory powers.

The European Commission submitted one on October 1, 2026Five-point planto strengthen the “resilience and security of the EU’s external borders”. The aim is, among other things, to “prevent sudden, mass illegal entries” – a direct reaction to theBorder breakthrough in CeutaEnd of July.

The core areas of the five-point plan are deeper cooperation with EU partner countries, strengthening the EU's external borders, setting up surveillance and early warning systems, dismantling smuggler networks and increasing deportations.

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More money and powers for Frontex

Following on from the five-point plan, a concrete new regulation of the EU border forces is to be presented on Tuesday. Among other things, the Commission has proposed increasing the agency's total budget for the next seven years to 12 billion euros. Since its founding in 2004, Frontex has developed from a comparatively small coordination office into the EU's most financially powerful agency. The budget increased from 6 million euros in 2005 to 1.12 billion euros in 2026.

The regulation is also intended, in particular, to address the demands of the right-wing EU faction, the European People's Party (EPP), which also includes the German parties CDU and CSU. One of the EPP's core demands was to increase the number of permanent emergency services from 10,000 to 30,000. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also foresees a “substantial increase” in the number of civil servants employed directly by Frontex. The number is currently around 1,250. However, the permanent corps also consists of officers who are provided directly by individual EU member states in the short and long term and are not employed directly by Frontex.

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According to EU Observer, another component of the regulation is closer official cooperation between Frontex and the European criminal police office Europol. Last year, Frontex attracted media attention for illegally forwarding personal data to Europol. Thousands of migrants and EU citizens were included in the data shared. "My whole life was in this police file: my relatives, my calls to my mother, even false details about my sex life. They wanted to portray me as promiscuous, a lesbian, and use morality to make me appear suspicious,"said Helena Maleno, a well-known human rights activist who was affected by the data collection.

Due to disputes between EU member states over the return of asylum seekers and strong outrage among numerous EU member states over Spain's decision to grant asylum seekers from Ceuta a temporary residence permit, Frontex should now be allowed to operate with expanded powers in third countries. Among other things, deportations within third countries should be made easier for the border authorities. It is currently unclear whether Frontex will operate under EU law or the local laws of third countries in such cases.

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Overall, there has been a widespread consensus at EU level to keep the number of deportations as high as possible and the number of arrivals as low as possible. In the first half of the current year, Frontex supported EU member states in deporting over 33,000 people. The annual budget includes 142.7 million euros for deportations alone.

Frontex'Involvement in serious human rights violations

In a press release, the sea rescue organization Sea-Watch sharply criticized the planned new regulation. The organization has been monitoring events in the central Mediterranean at Europe's external borders for over ten years and providing help to people in need. Sea-Watch has repeatedly documented how Frontex enables interceptions and illegal returns to Libya. There are also cases in which Frontex aircraft discovered boats in distress but did not initiate effective rescue measures.

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For Julia Winkler, spokeswoman for Sea-Watch, Frontex's actions are not a “failure” of European border policy. “The agency is doing exactly what it was created to do: keep people out, no matter the cost.” For years, the organization has been documenting how Frontex enables serious human rights violations and contributes to avoidable deaths at sea.

“With the expansion of Frontex, the EU is continuing its border policy, which is based on human rights violations, impunity and cooperation with militias and authoritarian regimes,” said Winkler. Sea-Watch therefore calls for an end to operations that enable human rights violations and to ensure transparency and accountability. In addition, sea rescue and border protection should be separated from each other and Frontex funds should be redirected to civilian sea rescue.

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There is even criticism of the expansion of Frontex from the ranks of the European Greens. Tineke Strik, a Dutch Green Party member of the European Parliament, told journalists that she saw a risk that Frontex would turn into a European version of the American ICE agency. Especially since the Trump administration, there have been numerous racially motivated violent crimes committed by the paramilitary ICE agency.

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