Belgium (Brussels Morning Newspaper), An Ombudsman inquiry into Frontex’s role in search and rescue operations has shown that the current rules leave the EU agency “unable to fulfill its fundamental rights obligations and too reliant on Member States to act when boats carrying migrants are in distress.”
The inquiry was launched following the Adriana tragedy in June 2023, where over 600 people drowned off the coast of Greece.
It found that Frontex made four separate offers to assist the Greek authorities by providing aerial surveillance but received no response.
The Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly, who is based in Brussels, also made several suggestions to Frontex to address certain shortcomings and called for the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry to assess the reasons for the large numbers of deaths in the Mediterranean.
According to documents inspected during the inquiry, Frontex made four separate offers to assist the Greek authorities by providing aerial surveillance of the Adriana but received no response.
The current rules mean that Frontex was not permitted to go to Adriana’s location at critical periods without the Greek authorities’ permission.
Consequently, she said that Frontex was at the scene of the Adriana only twice — once briefly by plane two hours after the Italian authorities first made the alert about the Adriana and then 18 hours later with a drone after the boat had already sunk.
The inquiry, added the ombudsman, also showed that Frontex has no internal guidelines on issuing emergency signals (e.g. Mayday calls), and that there is a failure to ensure Frontex’s fundamental rights monitors are sufficiently involved in decision-making on maritime emergencies.
The Ombudsman asked Frontex to address these and other shortcomings. She also said that, given growing concerns about fundamental rights violations in one Member State, Frontex should consider whether the threshold has been reached to allow it to formally end its activities with the Member State in question.
“We must ask ourselves why a boat so obviously in need of help never received that help despite an EU agency, two member states’ authorities, civil society, and private ships knowing of its existence.
“Why did reports of overcrowding, an apparent lack of life vests, children on board, and possible fatalities fail to trigger timely rescue efforts that could have saved hundreds of lives,” said O’Reilly.
“Frontex includes ‘coast guard’ in its name but its current mandate and mission fall short of that. If Frontex must help save lives at sea, but the tools for it are lacking, then this is a matter for EU legislators.
There is obvious tension between Frontex’s fundamental rights obligations and its duty to support Member States in border management control.”
“Cooperating with national authorities when there are concerns about them fulfilling their search and rescue obligations risks making the EU complicit in actions that violate fundamental rights and cost lives,” she said.
