The Frontex Consultative Forum on Fundamental Rights published its thirteenth annual report on Wednesday 6 May, calling for an urgent strengthening of the agency’s ethical responsibility.
In 2025, the Forum deplored the fact that Article 46 of the Frontex Regulation, which allows missions to be suspended in the event of abuses, had not been activated, despite “serious violations” of human rights, particularly in Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia.
In these countries, several incident reports mention systematic pushback practices and physical violence. Victims are reportedly forcibly returned without their situation being examined, accompanied by humiliation and the destruction of their personal belongings. The authors of the report are particularly concerned that some of Frontex’s operational plans still do not contain the necessary safeguards to prevent these abuses.
The organisation of “debriefings” is also singled out for criticism: deemed opaque, these interrogation interviews are still “prone to fundamental rights violations” and require stricter supervision to guarantee the anonymity and consent of exiled persons.
The report deplores the failure of an internal reform of the complaints mechanism, blocked by the agency’s Management Board. This prevents the Fundamental Rights Officer from directly transferring complaints concerning national border guards to the competent authorities, leaving many victims without recourse.
Finally, the Consultative Forum is calling for greater vigilance over the use of artificial intelligence in the screening of migrants, warning that these technologies present “major risks” for privacy and data protection.
Read the annual report: https://aeur.eu/f/ltp (Original version in French by Justine Manaud)