MEPs fear fundamental rights will take a hit under plans to expand EU border agency

Members of the European Parliament are concerned that fundamental rights could suffer under plans to expand the mandate of EU border agency Frontex.

Last week, Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner presented plans for a sweeping overhaul of Frontex that would put it in charge of everything from strategic planning and pooling resources for cost-efficient returns to reintegration support — and also allow it to help non-EU countries with deportations from their territory.

On Wednesday, Brunner addressed MEPs on the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee about those plans.

While member state authorities would still take decisions on returns, the EU border agency will become “responsible for return-related support from the beginning to the end, from A to Z,” Brunner said.

Under the Commission plan, Frontex could also help deport people from EU countries to hubs in countries outside the bloc, and from those hubs to third countries, the commissioner confirmed.

Centrist and left-leaning lawmakers said they were worried that the expanded mandate and scope would come with larger fundamental rights pitfalls.

“How will we guarantee that Frontex will comply with EU law while they have to obey the laws of third countries, where there is a completely different legal framework in place?” the Greens’ Tineke Strik, a Dutch MEP, asked the commissioner. “I really think that this modality will clearly lead to the risk of more fundamental rights violations,” she added.

Socialists and Democrats MEP Murielle Laurent, from France, asked: “To what extent can Europe externalize its migration policy while also externalizing its human rights defense policy?” She warned that “a more powerful EU agency is also an agency that should have more careful oversight.”

Brunner insisted that Frontex already has to meet firm fundamental rights obligations, and that those remain in place under the Commission’s plans.

Frontex would only assist non-EU countries in returns under an international agreement that lays out fundamental rights safeguards, he said. The Parliament would have to sign off on any such agreement, he added.