Open Letter: Frontex's 20th anniversary should also be its last

26 October 2024

Dear Ms. Ursula von der Leyen,

Frontex is a deadly failed experiment. It has made countless people less safe, eroded the values and ideals the European Union claims to hold dear, and provided a backdoor into government for corporate power. 

When Frontex was found to be complicit in systematic and serious human rights violations in Greece - by none other than the EU’s own anti-fraud watchdog - this should have given Europe pause for thought. 

Instead, Frontex has only expanded, putting a European stamp of approval on murderous border regimes. In the mission letter you wrote to the new Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration, you call for Frontex’s standing corps to be increased to 30,000. Frontex patrols the world’s deadliest borders, at which at least 60,000 people have died since 1993. 

In Bulgaria and Greece, Frontex missions work with border guards who beat and abuse people seeking safety and chase them through the forests with dogs. In the central Mediterranean, Frontex guides violent Libyan militias towards people on boats in distress. In North Africa, Frontex works with regimes that detain people in deadly torture camps or leave them for dead in the desert. There is no denying that those often impacted by these fundamental rights abuses, are racialised and other minoritised communities.

Frontex has also opened Europe’s doors to lobbyists. It holds hundreds of meetings with arms and surveillance executives, spending billions that could be going toward helping people but are instead being siphoned into the pockets of profiteers.

These corporate relationships also deepen Frontex’s complicity in abuse. The drones that communicate the position of boats in distress to Libyan militias are also those developed by Israeli firm IAI for use in the occupation of Palestine.

Frontex destroys and undermines the values Europe espouses. It is no coincidence that its former director now sits in the European Parliament on behalf of the far Right, or that another former deputy director spoke publicly about the agency’s inability to prevent far Right infiltration. 

On this anniversary, we are calling on you, the European Commission, and EU leaders to put an end to two decades of failure by:

• Abolishing Frontex: The agency has shown that it cannot be reformed. It is time to end it, and redirect its ballooning budget to policies that ensure the protection of all humanity and fundamental rights. 
• Replacing it with a migration policy rooted in care and compassion: Redistributing funds to provide access to safe pathways and support for people migrating; 
• Ending the incarceration of people in detention centres, and dismantling the deportations regime.
• Ending discriminatory surveillance: Dismantle the surveillance regime that spies on people migrating, in particular racialised people, violates their privacy, and endangers all of our rights. 
• Prioritising a fairer future for everyone: Invest in public housing, welfare, education, health care, legal aid, employment, and a clean environment that is accessible to everyone, regardless of immigration status. 

As economies falter, conflicts surge, and climate change wreaks havoc on both sides of the Mediterranean, Europe faces a choice. It can double down on its history of extraction, militarism, colonialism, and exploitation; pursuing policies that cause people to migrate while making borders ever more violent.

Or you can choose a path that genuinely protects everyone, stepping away from the untenable discourse that migration is a security problem rather than a humanitarian and political issue. What you and European leaders do next will shape our world irrevocably, for better or worse.

Supporting groups and organisations:

Abolish Frontex

ADE Aide aux Droits des personnes Etrangères Douarnenez

Afrique-Europe Interact

All Included Amsterdam

Alternatif Bilisim (AiA-Alternative Informatics Association, Turkey)

ARTICLE 19:

Aspiration

BAAS - Be Aware and Share

Balkanbrücke

Baobab Experience

Bienvenidas Refugiadas Málaga

Bits of Freedom

borderline-europe – Menschenrechte ohne Grenzen e. V

Calais Food Collective 

Campaign Against Arms Trade

Captain Support Network

Caravana Abriendo Fronteras

Care4Calais

Channel Info Project

Collectif Soutien Migrants 13/Al Manba

Collective Aid

CompassCollective

Divest Borders (People & Planet)

EmpowerVan

End Deportations Belfast

Equal Legal Aid

Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice

Europe Cares e.V.

European Digital Rights (EDRi)

European Network Against Racism (ENAR)

European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance (ESWA)

Feminist Antimilitarist Collective

Fresh Eyes

Global Campaign for Free Expression

Global Campaign to Reclaim People’s Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity

Glocal Roots

Grenzenlose Wärme - Refugee Relief Work e.V.

Habibi.Works (Soup & Socks, eV)

Herts for Refugees

Homo Digitalis

Inter Alia

InterEuropean Human Aid Association Germany e.V.

Kaleidoscope

 L' Auberge des Migrants

L’Aurora - Grup de Suport

La Cimade

La Mif (Militant·e·s pour l’Interdiction des Frontières)

Lexine Alpert

Love Without Borders

MERA25 Deutschland

Migranos-Movement

Migrants’ Rights Network

migration-control.info project

MiGreat

Migreurop

Missing Voices (REER)

Mobile Info Team

Mouvement Uplifted Africa - MUA

NGO Ecosistemas, Chile

No Name Kitchen

Observatoire des violences policières en Belgique

Otros Mundos Chiapas, México

Plateforme Migr’Afrique

Privacy International

Project ELPIDA e.V.

Project Play

Push Back Alarm Austria

r42-SailAndRescue

Red SOS Refugiados Europa

Refugee Woman Centre

ROOD, Socialistische Jongeren

Sea-Watch

Second Tree

SeebrücCitizen D / Državljan D

SETEM Catalunya

Solidarité sans frontières

Statewatch

Stop Deportations Vienna

Stop the War on Migrants

Stop Wapenhandel

The Channel Monitoring Project

Transbalkan Solidarity Collective

Transnational Institute

Un Ponte Per

Utopia 56

Woodyard

Würzburg Solidarisch e.V.

Yoga and Sport with Refugees