The EU’s border police Frontex stays below tight scrutiny following the leak of a damning report by the EU’s anti-fraud workplace, Olaf.
Earlier this week, the Warsaw-based EU company confirmed its new chief, Aija Kalnaj, has learn the 129-page categorized doc.
“Frontex Government Director advert interim Aija Kalnaja had a chance to learn the Olaf report,” stated the company, in an e mail on Thursday (6 October).
The report, leaked to Der Spiegel , Le Monde and LightHouse Stories over the summer time, particulars grave violations that led to the ouster of its executive-director Fabrice Leggeri in April.
They are saying it offers detailed proof of Greek human rights violations, which Frontex knew about however then determined to cowl up.
These violations embody the Greek Coast Guard towing refugees in inflatable rafts again in direction of Turkey, some witnessed by Frontex.
Greek authorities had been additionally piling strain on Frontex brokers to not doc violations, in keeping with the shops, once more citing the Olaf report.
Critics say such violations now require the company to droop operations in Greece.
The UN Particular Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Felipe González Morales, additionally chimed in.
“In Greece, pushbacks at land and sea borders have turn out to be de facto common coverage,” he had stated, earlier this 12 months.
The UN refugee company (UNHCR) had itself recorded lots of of incidents, involving some 17,000 individuals reportedly returned by drive to Turkey between 2020 and 2021 alone.
Greece has all the time denied any unsuitable doing. The Olaf report has solely piled on additional proof of the violations, presumably implicating the company itself.
When queried concerning the Olaf report, Kalnaja in July instructed the European Parliament that she had had no entry to it.
However now that she has seen the Olaf proof, the query was posed by this web site on whether or not Kalnaja has since shifted her serious about the company’s previous operations.
‘Guidelines adopted’ in Greece
However Frontex refused to touch upon the Olaf report itself and as a substitute appeared resolute that it had executed nothing unsuitable within the Aegean.
“We wish to reiterate that Frontex’s actions within the Aegean Sea area had been carried out in compliance with the relevant authorized framework, together with in accordance with the obligations stemming from elementary rights,” stated the company.
It additional added that it’s not concerned in pushbacks, that its workers is instructed to report any potential violation of elementary rights to the company’s Basic Rights Officer, and that it can not examine incidents in member states.
It says they’ve bolstered the position of the rights officer, revised the way it points so-called severe incident experiences (SIR), and is presently working to instigate additional reforms.
“Frontex has been in a position to launch 60 SIR experiences to this point in 2022, in comparison with 40 over the identical interval in 2021,” it stated, for example.
However attorneys at front-LEX, a Dutch-based civil society organisation, published entire sections of the Olaf report on Wednesday, shedding doubt on these claims.
One part says two departments inside Frontex had confirmed the credibility of pushbacks within the Aegean, but no severe incidents experiences had been launched.
One other says the company had relocated aerial belongings to keep away from witnessing doable violations going down off the Greek coast.
European lawmakers sitting on a committee oversee budgets additionally stay cautious.
On Thursday, they refused to log off on Frontex’s 2020 accounts given the “magnitude of the dedicated severe misconduct” below Leggeri’s command.
Additionally they faulted the company for not following up a few of the suggestions, together with readability of its border surveillance operations in Greece the place pushbacks had been going down.
Different points additionally remained unresolved below Leggeri’s command, together with 17 reported sexual harassment circumstances. At the very least one workers, who had allegedly suffered the sexual abuse, dedicated suicide.
That case is now being re-opened.