On 28 July, the European Commission promised that it was taking action to prevent migrants from being pushed back by the Greek coastguard with the passive complicity of Frontex and that “things have been put in place”, such as a fundamental rights strategy embodied by the agency’s new fundamental rights officers.
The European Commission added that contact had also been established with the Greek authorities in order to implement a monitoring mechanism.
It was reacting to the fact that the contents of the infamous OLAF report—which was delivered to the Frontex Management Board in mid-February and led to the resignation of the [executive] director, Fabrice Leggeri, and his right-hand man, Thibauld de La Haye Jousselin, at the end of April (see EUROPE 12942/1)—had been published in several media outlets that same day.
This report, which has not been made public, had brought to light the agency’s internal abuses and the various strategies used to keep cases in which migrants had been pushed back by Greek border guards quiet.
According to Le Monde (which was able to read this confidential report), the OLAF report thus indicates that Frontex had known about the ‘pushbacks’ [refoulement] for a long time. As early as April 2020, two divisions of the agency considered the frequent accusations of violent treatment by Greek police officers that were made by migrants trying to reach their shores to be “credible”, writes Le Monde.
“The fact that Greeks tolerate and practice ‘pushbacks’ is very likely”, Frontex’s Vulnerability Assessment Unit decided in an April 2020 report quoted by OLAF.
As for the responsibilities of the management team, “all three [along with Belgian Dirk Vande Ryse, the director of the division responsible for monitoring the borders—Ed.] allowed their personal opinions to interfere with Frontex’s conduct”, indicates the report—the management team having chosen to qualify these accusations of ‘pushbacks’ as Turkish propaganda.
“They considered that the European Commission was too focused on human rights issues,” the report quoted by Le Monde goes on to say. “By doing so, they made it impossible for the agency to fulfil its responsibilities.” (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)