Figure of the impermeability of European borders, regularly accused of tolerating illegal refoulement of migrants, the French boss of the European coastguard and border guard agency Frontex, Fabrice Leggeri, has presented his resignation, learned the AFP Friday from concordant sources. Fabrice Leggeri’s proposed resignation, submitted on Thursday and which must be “examined by the board of directors” on Friday, “follows an investigation into his management of the agency by Olaf”, the European Office of fight against fraud, underlined a source close to the file in Paris, confirming press information.
“A new beginning” for Frontex
“I can confirm that he has presented his resignation” to the board of directors, and this “opens up the possibility of a new beginning” for Frontex, indicated in Berlin a spokesperson for the German government questioned during a conference Press. Executive Director of Frontex since 2015, Fabrice Leggeri was targeted by a non-public report in early 2022 from Olaf which, according to Pointaccuses him in substance of “not having respected the procedures, having shown himself to be disloyal vis-à-vis the European Union and poor personal management”.
But this investigation comes against a backdrop of regular accusations, particularly from NGOs in recent years, of practices of illegal refoulement of migrants (so-called “pushbacks”) and complacency towards the Greek authorities, for example, on brutal returns to Turkey.
Illegal returns of migrants listed
Again on Wednesday, a survey published by the daily The world and Lighthouse Reports demonstrated that between March 2020 and September 2021, Frontex listed illegal returns of migrants, who arrived in Greek waters, as mere “departure prevention operations, carried out in Turkish waters”.
In a letter posted on social media by the German newspaper Der Spiegel and Lighthouse Reports on Friday, the boss of Frontex confirms that he “hands over (his) mandate to the board of directors, since it seems that the mandate of Frontex on which (he was) elected and then reappointed in June 2019 has silently but effectively changed”.
The very nature of Frontex’s mission called into question
In fact, beyond Olaf’s report, it is the philosophy and the very nature of the agency’s mission that seems to be at the heart of the balance of power that pushed Fabrice Leggeri to resign: should Frontex ensure above all the impermeability of Europe’s external borders? Or should it oversee EU member states in protecting asylum seekers who knock on its door? In recent months, the Executive Director of Frontex has openly and publicly questioned this dilemma. At the beginning of December, during a round table, he even said he was “helpless” in the face of this situation.
“Between the imperative of not letting people pass irregularly and, on the other hand, the principle of non-refoulement because anyone in need of protection has the right to asylum, how do we do it? No one is able to answer me. We are schizophrenic,” he said. In seven years at the head of Frontex, which must monitor the external borders of the EU, Fabrice Leggeri has accompanied the strengthening of the agency which has been considerably beefed up and whose staff – with armed agents, now – must reach 10,000 coast and border guards by 2027.