Frontex gets 17,000 extra officers for deportations while human-rights monitoring suffers downgrade

A revamped EU border force Frontex is set to have around 17,000 people involved in deportations at its disposal, while human-rights monitoring is narrowed and the agency’s ability to terminate operations in a member state over rights violations is weakened. The overhaul, presented on Tuesday (27 October), follows months of speculation by a European Commission determined to give the Warsaw-based agency a more central role in the bloc’s deportations, as reported last week by EUobserver. “The fundamental rights framework in Frontex is among the strongest in any EU agency, and that will stay also with this review,” Henna Virkkunen, a commission vice-president, told reporters. “I’m not aware of any other border management authority with stronger protection anywhere in the world. I would actually say, and we’re not changing that. So this is pretty clear,” also said Magnus Brunner, the EU commissioner for migration. But the claims, made at a press conference in Brussels, do not entirely match its 275-page proposal that it published only later on Tuesday evening. Unable to scrutinise the text ahead of the press conference, reporters could only guess at what the proposal actually contained without being able to directly challenge the commissioners. To read this story, log in or subscribeEnjoy access to all articles and 25 years of archives, comment and gift articles. Become a subscriber for as low as €1,75 per week.Read without limitsAlready a subscriber? Login