Targeted by an investigation by the European Anti-Fraud Office for not having respected internal procedures, having been disloyal to the European Union and having carried out a management incompatible with the proper functioning of the institution, the head of the agency European Border and Coast Guard, commonly known as Frontex, has tendered his resignation. It was accepted on Friday April 29.
A mandate marked by a security reorientation
Against the backdrop of regular accusations by NGOs of illegal refoulement of migrants, called “pushbacks”, an investigation had been opened by Olaf, which closed it last February. Its 129-page final report denounces the action of Fabrice Leggeri at the head of Frontex, accusing him in particular of having drastically reinforced the security of the EU’s external borders and thus undermined the humanitarian culture inherent in the creation of the agency in 2004. Under its mandate, which began in 2015, the number of border and coast guards has increased and their power has been considerably extended, since some agents are now authorized to carry arms.
In order to illustrate the change of ideological course led by Fabrice Leggeri, the report denounces in particular an attitude of complacency towards the return of migrants by the Greek authorities. In its notes written between March 2020 and September 2021, Frontex had indeed qualified as simple “prevention operations” the mass return of migrants to Turkey. A video published at the end of 2020 even showed an agency vessel blocking a refugee boat, while it was in Greek waters.
At the same time, Frontex has recruited several fundamental rights monitors responsible for monitoring the proper application of the right to asylum. Ensuring the impermeability of borders and helping asylum seekers, such is the double mission that Fabrice Leggeri failed to carry out simultaneously, judging it publicly “schizophrenic” during a round table organized in December 2021.
Poor relations with other European bodies
In his resignation letter, Fabrice Leggeri believes that he was elected to ensure border security and that “his mandate has been modified”. This declaration provoked the ironic reaction, on Twitter, of the Dutch European parliamentarian Tineke Strik, leader of the working group in charge of Frontex, who demanded the resignation of the senior official. She considers that the protection of the right to asylum has always been enshrined in the statutes of Frontex and that this must indeed be “the priority of the next director.”
In conflict with several elected members of the European Parliament, Fabrice Leggeri also did not have good relations with the European Commission and its president, Ursula von der Leyen. Just like with the Swedish Home Affairs Commissioner, Ylva Johansson, and the Director General of these same Affairs, Monique Pariat, both victims, according to the Olaf report, of unpleasant remarks. In 2020, accusations of internal harassment were also investigated.