Frontex is the common name for the European Border and Coast Guard Agency. The term Frontex derives from the French for external borders, frontières extérieures.
The agency’s work is based around improving and strengthening border security systems at the land and sea borders of the European Union. In the words of the agency itself, “the activities of Frontex are intelligence driven. Frontex complements and provides particular added value to the national border management systems of the Member States.”
The purpose of this observatory is to analyse and document the role and activities of Frontex.
You can find documents, reports and material published by Statewatch, materials published by Frontex, along with documentation of legal and administrative complaints that have been made about the agency, by Statewatch and other entities.
You can find more news, analyses, and publications elsewhere on the website, and in the Statewatch database, by using the search function.
If you have materials you would like to share with the Observatory, or have any comments or questions, please contact jane[at]statewatch.org.
Legal basis
Frontex was established by EU Regulation 2004/2007. As the importance and the involvement of the Agency grew, limits to the initial mandate were identified, including too heavy a reliance on Member States’ technical contributions and the need for stronger human rights safeguards, especially with respect to operations at sea. Regulation 2004/2007 was therefore amended first by Regulation 863/2007 and then by Regulation 1168/2011.
Frontex’s legal basis was updated once more with Regulation (EU) 2016/1624, re-launching the agency as the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (EBCGA). In 2019 the regulation was recast and the agency is now governed by Regulation (EU) 2019/1896.
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Policy developments
The idea of European border guards has been debated at an EU level since the early 2000s (see the Statewatch Analysis from when this project was in its infancy). The European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union – or Frontex for short – was established by Regulation 2004/2007.
Calls from the Agency (for more autonomy), criticisms from human rights organisations (regarding transparency, misconduct of border guards and violation of migrants’ rights) and demands from some Member States (asking for a more powerful agency) led to the amendment of Regulation 2004/2007 with the adoption of complementary Regulation 1168/2011.
Frontex’s legal basis was updated once more with Regulation (EU) 2016/1624, re-launching the agency as the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (EBCGA). In 2019 this regulation was recast and the agency is now governed by Regulation (EU) 2019/1896 (see the legal basis section for more information).
The documentation contained in this section traces the development of the agency since 2004. Documents are categorised according to their discussion of the following operational topics:
- Border surveillance
- Deportations
- Border control
- Research and development
- External operations and cooperation
- Funding and spending
- Data protection
These sections are being updated regularly. Other sections of the Observatory contain documents on historical background and related EU policy.
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Frontex under scrutiny: inquiries and investigations November 2020 onwards
Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, is currently under heavy scrutiny from multiple angles, including the European Parliament, the EU Ombudsman, and the European Anti-Fraud Office. At the same time judicial action has been initiated vis-à-vis the agency.
This unprecedented activation of accountability mechanisms has been sparked by allegations of the complicity of the agency in push-backs at the Greek-Turkish border, supported by evidence published by a consortium of media outlets in November 2020, including the German magazine Der Spiegel, the broadcaster ARD and Bellingcat.
This section of the Observatory aims to give a bird’s eye’s view of the recent investigations of Frontex.
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Document collection: Frontex and “operational personal data”
For a number of years, Frontex has been keen to make use of powers it has been granted to process personal data in order to deal with “cross-border crime”. Its plan was to build on an existing project called PeDRA: Personal Data for Risk Analysis.
In July this year, the journalists Luděk Stavinoha, Apostolis Fotiadis and Giacomo Zandonini revealed that:
“Frontex and the European Commission sidelined their own data protection watchdogs in pursuing a much-criticised expansion of “intrusive” data collection from migrants and refugees to feed into Europol’s vast criminal databases.”
The documents published here were used in that investigation, and make it crystal clear how the management of the EU’s most powerful agency sought to ignore the advice of its Data Protection Officer (DPO), echoing previous attempts to sideline the agency’s Fundamental Rights Officer (FRO) in the scandal over pushbacks at the Greek-Turkish border and operations at the Hungarian-Serbian border.
While the agency was seeking to enable greater collection and use of personal data from various sources, it does already collects substantial amounts of data through “debriefing” interviews it conducts with people who arrived on EU territory.
Research by Cova Bachiller López and Fran Morenilla has shown that:
“…debriefing interviews have a clear aim: to identify the skipper and others involved in the ‘organization’ of irregular travel, which often simply entails those steering the boat, those in charge of the GPS or the petrol. To do that, officers conduct covert interrogations with one or two potential witnesses as well as the suspect that will be then referred to the national authorities. Interviews take place surrounded by utmost opacity: there is no paper trail, no records of Frontex referrals to national authorities, no privacy and no lawyer is present.”
As for the implementing decision that Frontex has to adopt in order to make greater use of “operational personal data”, it was adopted by the management board on 21 December 2021. However, following the publication of the investigation into the process of adoption, they were rescinded and are now being redrafted. The issues bear resemblance to those at Europol that recently revealed by Statewatch.
At the time of publication of these documents, renewed versions were yet to be adopted. Minutes of a Management Board meeting at the end of July (pdf) note:
“The MB was informed about the EDPS opinion on MB Decisions 68/2021 adopting the rules on processing personal data by the Agency and 69/2021 adopting the rules on processing operational personal data by the Agency. The MB urged the Agency to present the amened draft decisions to the MB as soon as possible.”
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Access to documents requests
This section contains information access to documents requests made by Statewatch to, or about, Frontex; and the documents released in response to those requests.
Public access to EU documents
Access to documents requests can be made under Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, particularly article 2, which states:
“(1)Any citizen of the Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State, has a right of access to documents of the institutions, subject to the principles, conditions and limits defined in this Regulation.
(2) The institutions may, subject to the same principles, conditions and limits, grant access to documents to any natural or legal person not residing or not having its registered office in a Member State.
(3) This Regulation shall apply to all documents held by an institution, that is to say, documents drawn up or received by it an in its posession, in all areas of activity of the European Union.”
“Document” is defined in the Regulation as:
“any content whatever its medium(written on paper or stored in electronic form or as a sound, visual or audiovisual recording) concerning a matter relating to the policies, activities and decisions falling within the institution’s sphere of responsibility.”
Exceptions are outlined in article 4, and the process of application in articles 6, 7 and 8.
Access to documents at Frontex
In 2020, Frontex’s ‘Transparency Office’ – the department which processes and responds to these applications – stopped processing requests for access to documents by email. Instead, it forces those requesting access to use its online portal, which has obstructed the process of transparency through technical glitches and communication faults.
Despite a huge expansion in staff and financial resources as a result of the growth of the agency’s legal mandate, Frontex has confirmed that “The Transparency Office has no budget allocation as it is made up of existing staff and relies on the entire agency to contribute.” The agency has apparently not seen the value in improving its public transparency.
A number of the sub-sections listed below recount the process of the request, to demonstrate the obstacles and delays faced in seeking transparency from Frontex.
For more excellent resources on Frontex documents, we encourage you to visit:
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Legal and administrative complaints
Legal and administrative complaints made by Statewatch to the European Ombudsman concerning Frontex.
The Ombudsman investigates complaints about maladministration by EU institutions and bodies, but also by “proactively looking into broader systemic issues”.
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Statewatch reports
Critical reports
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Frontex publications
According to Articles 20(2) and 28(2) of amended Regulation 2004/2007, Frontex shall make its general reports public and also “ensure that (…) the public and any interested party are rapidly given objective, reliable and easily understandable information with regard to its work”.
Frontex has a “key documents” section on its own website, on which the public can search for certain publications. Over the years we have found it useful to ensure that an alternative copy is available on the internet, and have therefore published pdfs in the sections below.
Some crucial information regarding Frontex’s relations with third parties, as well as the different risk analyses which constitute the basis of the Agency’s work remain unavailable. The fundamental rights documents listed below can be viewed as a direct answer by the Agency to the sharp criticism to which it has been subject since its establishment.
We have organised these publications into the following sections: