On Wednesday 10 December, the Danish Presidency of the EU Council will present its conclusions on the EU27’s expectations regarding the Frontex agency’s future mandate to the Member States’ Justice and Home Affairs ministers.
As the Commission prepares to present new tasks for the European Border and Coast Guard Agency in 2026, the Presidency summarised the state of play in a note dated 8 December. Member States do not want a radical overhaul, but rather a new mandate that fully addresses their strategic needs.
The Presidency begins by emphasising that the latest discussions at the Schengen Council on 14 October “showed broad agreement amongst ministers on three guiding principles for the future of Frontex: the starting point should be the operational needs of Member States; the focus should remain on the agency’s core functions relating to external borders and return; and cooperation with third countries is a key issue to address, including a Frontex role ‘in returns from third countries to other third countries’”.
Based on this, the Presidency has been working on issues related to the standing corps, third countries, hybrid threats and governance. And it notes that, while stressing the need for changes to improve operation and efficiency, “Member States also emphasise the importance of fully utilising the potential within the current mandate”.
On the standing corps, “any proposal to enlarge [it] must be firmly rooted in the Commission’s impact assessment for the proposal, taking also into account future needs relating e.g. to implementation of the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’”. And “most Member States do not perceive at this stage an added value or operational need for any significant enlargement of the standing corps”. Ursula von der Leyen recently advocated expanding Frontex to 30,000 permanent staff, whereas the current mandate calls for 10,000 by 2027.
For the Member States, “first and foremost, it is important to look at the quality of the standing corps to ensure that Frontex can deliver on highly specialised Member State needs”.
The Commission’s proposal to supplement existing staff categories with a new reserve category should also avoid any new excessive administrative burden and respect national sovereignty.
Transfer to ‘return hubs’. The EU27 continue to advocate strengthening Frontex’s cooperation with third countries, with support for third countries in carrying out returns to other third countries, “which would require a new clear legal basis”.
Many Member States also feel that Frontex should be able to assist them with transfers to ‘return hubs’, should these hubs be established.
More generally, they “also call for more flexible forms of international agreements. [...] This should allow for deployments to third countries with a limited scope without the need to negotiate a full-fledged status agreement”, such as deployments at major international airports.
Hybrid threats. Frontex “should have a clear mandate to assist Member States faced with instrumentalisation of migrants if a Member State requests Frontex support.” Its mandate should be extended to “surveillance of airspace above land borders, e.g. to counter the use of drones”.
But others want to avoid any involvement of Frontex in defence-related issues.
With regard to fundamental rights, most Member States consider the current guarantees sufficient, but do not rule out a review of Article 46 (possible suspension of activities), particularly in the event of a rights violation. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)