Jonas Grimheden, Fundamental Rights Officer at Frontex, gave a mixed review of his work at the agency on Thursday 27 April. On the positive side, he said that the Agency is increasingly “taking into account” the views of fundamental rights officers and involving them to a greater extent in its actions.
“Frontex is having a positive effect on the ground and that’s what I've been seeing for the last two years”, he told the Frontex enquiry group run by the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, with the agency beginning to have a “small influence and footprint” on actions of member states, a development that should ideally be further promoted by revising the agency's regulation.
Frontex now has 46 operational and trained fundamental rights officers. Grimheden has requested that six additional officers are recruited by the beginning of 2024, followed by 18 officers a little later.
But he also noted that Member States are producing fewer incident reports, which does not allow Frontex to gain a full picture of what is happening at the external borders.
When asked about the action plan adopted by Greece to address alleged violations of migrants’ rights at external borders, the official also said he was still “far from convinced” by the country’s efforts and was still waiting for “specific actions on the ground”. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)