The European Union is preparing the expansion of competencies of the Frontex border agency, enabling it to help bring back and deport irregular migrants from one country outside the EU to another.
The new reform aims to extend European migration policy beyond the bloc’s borders, and is expected to trigger reactions by human rights organisations, Telegrafi broadcast.
According to some EU officials quoted by Euronews, the European Commission is expected to present the reform package Tuesday. Currently, Frontex helps national authorities return migrants from EU countries to countries of origin, as well as participate in patrolling the bloc’s external borders and coastlines.
With new regulations, the Warsaw headquarters will also be able to support the authorities of countries outside the EU, including North African governments, to return Central African citizens to their countries of origin before they try to reach Europe.
The more people you return before they reach Europe, the less you will have to return after they arrive, a European official told Euronews.
Frontex will also be allowed to participate in deportations from return centres, which a recently adopted law allows EU countries to create in third states. Five European governments are negotiating the creation of the first centre, which is expected to begin operating in 2027.
At these centres, migrants whose demands for asylum or the right to stay in the EU are being sheltered. They are expected to eventually return to countries of origin, while Frontex involvement can facilitate the organisation of final transfers.
Josephine Solandicki, a researcher at the Transnational Institute of Headquarters in Amsterdam, said the agency is increasingly becoming a deportation facility operating far from the EU’s direct borders, and not only in an institution supporting member states in border control.
Nongovernmental organisations and civil society groups demand that the expansion of Frontex’s mandate be accompanied by stronger monitoring and accountability mechanisms to ensure that the fundamental rights of migrants are respected. They argue that the agency was previously involved in cases of rights violations during its operations within Europe.
However, any Frontex co-operation with a country outside the EU will require a special agreement with the current state. Such agreements, known as status agreements, already exist with several non-member states, including Albania, Serbia and Northern Macedonia.
They enable agency officials to engage in specific tasks, joint operations and quick border interventions on the territory of partner countries.
The EU is negotiating a deal with Senegal. Meanwhile, a Frontex liaison officer for Senegal, with a mandate including Mauritania and Gambian, was appointed in 2023 under informal co-operation agreements.
The reform also envisions creating a force for rapid reaction, which will be engaged in the event of unexpected and massive arrivals of irregular migrants. Also, a unit for online surveillance will be established, tasked with monitoring social networks to prevent massive migrants’ movements.
These measures are intended to ward off situations like that of last July in Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in North Africa, where about 900,000 migrants forcibly crossed the border from Morocco, according to the Euronews report.
The reform is expected to be introduced by European Commission for Security Vice President Henna Virkkunen, and Commissioner for Internal Affairs Magnus Brunner, following the Commission’s weekly meeting Tuesday.
Under the EU’s upcoming seven-year budget, Frontex is expected to benefit 12 billion euros, twice the previous financing. This increase would strengthen the agency’s capacities at a time when the bloc is aiming to expand control and implementation policies of returning migrants even beyond its territory. /Telegraphy/
