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Where was Frontex when 600 people died in the Med? [1]
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Date: 2023-09
Frontex cannot corroborate either account, because it was not there. Its absence during the fatal operation raises serious questions about the agency’s ability to ensure human rights compliance in its joint operations. Indeed, the Pylos shipwreck demonstrates once again that the EU’s “eyes and ears” are being intentionally shut off to the actions of member states.
According to Frontex, the drone that spotted the Adriana in distress hours before it capsized left the scene shortly thereafter to refuel. Frontex offered to re-deploy a drone to the area, but the Greek authorities instead instructed Frontex to fly to the south of Crete, where another ship was reported to be in distress with 80 people onboard. After monitoring the events there, Frontex eventually returned the drone to the location of the fishing trawler, but it arrived too late. The Adriana had already sunk hours beforehand, in the middle of the night, with hundreds of people trapped inside.
On 16 June, Frontex released an official statement which expressed being “shocked and saddened” by the shipwreck and offered condolences to families of the victims. The statement acknowledged that Frontex had been redirected to a faraway part of the Aegean and that “no Frontex plane or boat was present at the time of the tragedy.” It did not condemn any of Greece’s actions or inactions.
Out of sight: manufacturing situational ignorance
The Pylos shipwreck was not the first time that Frontex was absent from the scene during a violent encounter between national border enforcement and asylum seekers. The Hellenic Coast Guard has been sending Frontex assets away after spotting boats of asylum seekers for years. Their ability to do so is integral to the agency’s relationship to national authorities: member states determine where, when and how often Frontex patrols. They also decide what Frontex’s fundamental rights monitors are allowed to observe. Last year, for example, Frontex’s monitors were denied access to “land patrolling, sea patrolling and debriefing interviews” in every country where Frontex operates.
Member states determine where Frontex’s deployed officers and rights monitors are present, and from where they are excluded – and therefore decide what Frontex can witness and what the state can keep hidden. Frontex takes pride in having ‘situational awareness’ – and justifies its enormous budget by claiming to provide it – but this mode of collaboration generates situational ignorance regarding systematic border violence.
From conversations we had with current and former Frontex officers, it is evident that there is a pervasive awareness within the agency that national authorities keep certain operational spaces out of Frontex officers’ immediate sight.
Frontex staff and senior EU officials are aware of, and seemingly accept, that this diversion tactic has become a defining element of Frontex operations. Frontex’s fundamental rights officer noted in a serious incident report last year that “Frontex staff [is] systematically being kept away from locations where pushbacks are being carried out”. Similarly, an investigation by the European Anti-Fraud Office found that Frontex aerial assets had been relocated by Greek authorities to a different operational activity “to avoid witnessing incidents in the Aegean Sea with a potential [fundamental rights] component” (pp.120-121).
Greece is not the only member state with this modus operandi. For example, a serious incident report from Bulgaria last year warned that "The [Frontex] team is kept away from the “hot” points. As situations happen the local [Bulgarian] colleague receives the indication to move the Frontex team around, avoiding certain areas”. The result is, once again, a situation where Frontex officers are kept deliberately away from locations where national authorities are most likely violating fundamental rights.
Despite all this, Frontex officers on the ground have occasionally managed to witness fundamental rights violations. When this happens, their reports have been subjected to state-orchestrated denialism and obfuscation. Officers have repeatedly come under pressure to either not report what they have seen or to distort the institutional record of what happens at EU borders, as we and others have documented elsewhere.
The future of Frontex in Greece
During Frontex’s management board meeting on 20-21 June, just a week after the Pylos shipwreck, the agency’s fundamental rights officer Jonas Grimheden recommended a temporary suspension of Frontex’s activities in Greece. Under Article 46 of Frontex’s Regulation, the executive director “shall” suspend – or even terminate – the agency’s operations in a member state when there have been "violations of fundamental rights or international protection obligations that are of a serious nature or are likely to persist".
Legally, what the regulation requires of the executive director in this context is clear. Greece has committed serious violations of fundamental rights and international protection obligations, as confirmed by the European Anti-Fraud Office's report. But suspension, the executive director told the European Parliament, “affects our capability to save lives” and “needs to be balanced”. His suggestion is that the situation would only worsen if the agency pulled out entirely, and thus Frontex should remain, adding that “Frontex is committed to deliver support and being the eyes and ears [as the] European Border and Coast Guard”.
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[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/frontex-greece-coastguard-pylos-adriana-shipwreck-600-dead-mediterranean/
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