On Monday 26 June, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) published the 2022 Annual Report of the Frontex Consultative Forum on Fundamental Rights. The report also makes recommendations on air surveillance assistance operations.
This Forum, which brings together NGOs and bodies such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is reviewing the implementation of Article 46 of the Frontex Regulation, which can suspend the Agency’s operations in the event of proven violations of migrants’ rights.
With regard to Article 46, a working group was set up in 2022 in Greece.
In its report, the Consultative Forum stresses “the need for swift action by Frontex in cases of reported or alleged fundamental rights violations”. It advises the European agency to “facilitate the monitoring of progress in their implementation of the various recommendations or to consider the activation of an emergency monitoring mode entailing the constant presence of fundamental rights monitors in a specific place/country for a certain period”.
Frontex is also being asked to strengthen its capacity to identify vulnerable persons and to deploy potentially more agents on the ground to fill the gaps in reporting.
According to the French newspaper Le Monde, Frontex’s head of fundamental rights, Jonas Grimheden, recently recommended temporarily suspending the agency’s activities in Greece on the basis of Article 46.
For multipurpose aerial surveillance, “it is paramount that Frontex introduces a human rights impact assessment [...] ahead of establishing a service agreement with a Member State or a third country for the provision of MAS services”, the authors of the report note. In their view, “such an assessment would meet the fundamental rights safeguard requirements of the ‘Frontex’ Regulation and would allow the Agency to mitigate potential risks of [fundamental rights] violations”.
Link to the document: https://aeur.eu/f/7qx (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)