The European Border and Coastguard Agency celebrated its first anniversary on Friday 6 October, explains Frontex in a press release. Their managing director, Fabrice Leggeri, said the agency’s new mandate and increased resources were a strong, clear, political response not only to migration, but also to the security crisis the EU faced at its external borders in 2015 and 2016.
The new Frontex currently deploys 1,700 agents across the EU and its new mandate gives it 1,500 extra agents that can be deployed in five days in the event of a crisis.
Over the next few weeks, Frontex, the member states and the European Commission will take other measures in the direction of an integrated European returns system. The agency has helped return more than 10,000 foreigners thus far in this year, almost double the 2016 figures, notes the press release.
The press release explains that under its new mandate, in addition to coordinating returns operations involving at least two member states, Frontex has started to help the member states in their own returns operations, which now account for nearly half of all of Frontex’s returns operations. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)