The EU is currently short of 5,000 coastguards and border guards to ensure its external borders are monitored effectively. This was one of the comments made by Fabrice Leggeri, the French Executive Director of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) on Thursday, when he appeared before the members of the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties.
In a presentation to MEPs on the missions and activities undertaken by Frontex - which Ursula von der Leyen plans to ensure has 10,000 staff by 2024, but which currently only has a deployable force of 1,500 staff - its director stressed the new and increasingly diverse range of tasks undertaken by the agency: for example, it has expanded in order to work to prevent organised crime and terrorism.
He highlighted the increasing cooperation with other European agencies, such as the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), Eurojust and Europol, and provided figures on the migrant return work it carries out jointly with Member States, using both charter flights and scheduled flights. In 2019, 10,000 people were returned to their countries of origin as part of the joint return operations with Member States.
Leggeri also said that to date, three stress test exercises (external border vulnerability assessments) have been conducted in the EU, but did not give details of these “very sensitive” exercises.
The head of Frontex was questioned extensively by MEPs regarding the agency's role in maritime search and rescue operations and Frontex's involvement in violations of fundamental rights.
Frontex respects international maritime law
On the first question, Leggeri stressed that the bodies responsible for maritime coordination should be the first point of contact when a vessel in distress is spotted and that this is stipulated by international law. In 2019, the Agency rescued 26,000 people at sea, 15,000 in the area around Greece and Turkey, 1,500 in the Central Mediterranean and the rest between Morocco and Spain, the director said.
In the Central Mediterranean, there were “18% fewer arrivals and we have increased surveillance”. He went on to say that “we have systematically shared information with maritime rescue centres; we have done this to respect international law, as we are obliged to share information with maritime coordination centres, but are not able to share information directly with merchant ships”.
With regard to fundamental rights, the Agency's new mandate, which was adopted this year, allows 40 additional officers to be assigned to this task. A pilot project will be launched with the European Fundamental Rights Agency to work on the profile these new agents will require. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)