The women and men who’re a part of Europe’s new elite border drive meet each morning at 9 a.m. for a video convention that’s considered on screens in international locations like Greece, Croatia, Bulgaria and Albania. The Frontex officers normally focus on migration actions and human trafficking, However for the reason that starting of January, the inner conferences have targeted totally on low morale inside the crew.
“Do one thing eventually, or quickly nobody will work right here anymore,” one border guard warned in one of many calls. The policemen and girls who recurrently complain about their woes are the European Union’s first devoted border guards. They’re a part of Frontex’s standing corps.
For months now, Frontex, the EU’s border safety company, and its head Fabrice Leggeri, have been embroiled in a sequence of scandals. Frontex has been accused of being concerned in unlawful repatriations of refugees at Europe’s exterior borders, office harassment and a attainable case of fraud linked to the company. Now the disaster has additionally reached the standing corps, the border administration company’s status undertaking.
Frontex plans to deploy as much as 10,000 border guards to the EU’s exterior borders within the coming years. The civil servants have been promised model new tools and EU jobs with lavish salaries and European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen personally pushed for the creation of the standing corps. The celebs of the EU flag sparkle on the sleeves of the brand new darkish blue uniforms worn by the reserves.
The job might sound glamorous on paper, however it’s something however within the international locations the place the reserve guards have been deployed, like Greece, Croatia and Albania. A number of officers have instructed DER SPIEGEL of a scarcity of company autos, such that costly SUVs should be rented as a substitute — with officers allegedly even having to pay for gasoline themselves in some instances. They declare that bills weren’t reimbursed for bureaucratic causes, and that elements of the brand new uniforms have been lacking and needed to be purchased by the border guards themselves.
The officers ought to be out looking down criminals and catching smugglers, however Class 1 officers, who’re instantly employed by Frontex, thus far haven’t been allowed to hold weapons as a result of the company failed to offer the authorized foundation for doing so in time. The result’s that the border guards, supposedly members of an elite European drive, need to be escorted on each one in every of their patrols by nationwide safety forces.
When contacted by DER SPIEGEL, Frontex additionally mentioned that the pandemic has created further challenges for deploying the drive, however issues are again on monitor once more. But the company’s personal officers don’t see it that method. It’s a “Potemkin reserve,” scoffs one. “It’s not value it,” says one other officer, who is considering quitting.
The institution of the standing corps is without doubt one of the EU’s most vital migration coverage tasks. The aim is to regulate irregular immigration. However now the European Fee and the member states should stand by and watch because it turns into the main target of ridicule.
The fiasco over the standing corps has grow to be emblematic of an company that has been falling in need of public expectations for years, and of an company head who’s accumulating increasingly energy however does not appear to know easy methods to use it appropriately.
Beneath Leggeri, Frontex has stumbled from one scandal to the subsequent. Final autumn, DER SPIEGEL, along with worldwide media companions, first reported that Frontex forces within the Aegean Sea have been concerned in unlawful repatriations of refugees, that are known as pushbacks. The Frontex Administration Board is investigating the allegations and the EU Ombudsman has opened an inquiry. Leggeri himself is outwardly obstructing the investigations.
Inner paperwork counsel that Leggeri’s complete management fashion is underneath scrutiny.
In January, the European Anti-Fraud Workplace (OLAF) introduced it had launched an investigation into Frontex. Leggeri claims that the investigators are trying into the pushback stories and that he can not present any additional remark. However DER SPIEGEL has present in its reporting that the accusations go a lot additional. The investigation entails a attainable case of fraud involving a service supplier, allegations of office harassment and whether or not info was withheld from the company’s elementary rights officer, whose job is to watch Frontex’s adherence to primary human rights specified by EU charters, conventions and worldwide legislation. Inner paperwork counsel that Leggeri’s complete management fashion is underneath scrutiny.
What occurred? How might the authority charged with defending the EU’s exterior borders descend into such chaos? And what does all of it imply for the EU’s migration coverage?
DER SPIEGEL, the media group Lighthouse Reviews and the French newspaper Libération interviewed almost a dozen present and former Frontex officers within the reporting of this story. Most insisted that their names not be talked about within the story for worry that they may lose their jobs. Leggeri, for his half, rejected an interview request.
When mixed with inner paperwork that DER SPIEGEL and its companions have been capable of view, the insiders’ stories paint an image of an company in turmoil.
France Télécom: How Leggeri seized energy at Frontex
The headquarters of Frontex are situated in an workplace advanced in Warsaw’s Wola district, not removed from the town middle. For years, just a few officers labored right here compiling stories on migration routes. Precise border guards have been borrowed from nationwide police forces.
However the company has grown from a price range of simply over 6 million euros in 2005 to 460 million euros in 2020. By 2027, Europe’s taxpayers can have supplied 5.6 billion euros in funding to the company.
Frontex now has its personal border guards, known as the standing corps, along with plane and drones that can quickly be complemented by unmanned airships that can present surveillance as they circle over the Aegean Sea. Frontex’s rise has had quite a bit to do with Leggeri, the person who has performed greater than anybody else to form the company.
Leggeri, 52, was born in Mulhouse, in France’s Alsace area, and speaks fluent German. He studied on the École Nationale d’Administration in Strasbourg, a college that has lengthy produced the French elite. Beginning in 2013, he labored on the Inside Ministry in Paris within the division for irregular immigration. On the time, the federal government advocated for Frontex’s growth, and two years later, Leggeri was named head of the company.
Colleagues describe Leggeri as a technocrat. At a Christmas social gathering as soon as, the crew gathered round and he started speaking with nice pathos in regards to the achievements of the “Frontex household.” However Leggeri was studying from his notepad. “It appeared like the entire issues was out of his league,” recalled one viewers member.
Leggeri “runs the company prefer it’s a sub-prefecture.”
Through the course of Frontex’s growth, Leggeri tailor-made the company to exactly match his wants. He expanded his cupboard, filling many vital posts with fellow French compatriots.
Frontex employees say Leggeri is on hardly ever seen within the hallways, and that every one vital selections are made by a small interior circle. They describe him as being a management freak, with some former staffers even going as far as to name him a “dictator.” Leggeri “runs the company prefer it’s a sub-prefecture,” says somebody who has labored with him for a very long time. “You could possibly run a French ministry that method, however not a world group.”
Frontex staffers have taken to calling Leggeri’s cupboard “France Télécom” when the bosses aren’t round. It’s a reference to the scandal on the French telecommunications authority, which concerned systematic bullying and harassment so dangerous that it drove quite a few workers to commit suicide.
The resentment felt by many Frontex staffers is basically directed at one in every of Leggeri’s closest confidants: Thibauld de La Haye Jousselin. The Frenchman comes from an aristocratic household from southern France. He as soon as labored for Bernard Carayon, a member of the French parliament, who was once a part of a far-right scholar union. De La Haye Jousselin is a reserve officer within the French military and has a factor for the army and uniforms. “De La Haye Jousselin is clearly on the fitting politically,” says somebody who has recognized him for years. Now, he serves Leggeri as the pinnacle of his cupboard.
Insiders say that de La Haye Jousselin leads with an iron fist, and that he’s fast to lose his mood. Staff declare he insults individuals and engages in disrespectful conduct. The company acknowledged that Frontex has not obtained any official complaints about de La Haye Jousselin and in addition claimed that no cupboard member has been employed solely on the idea of their nationality. De La Haye Jousselin dismissed the accusations as “false and baseless.”
However the conduct of Leggeri and his cupboard chief has penalties. Dissent appears to be frowned upon. And that is probably one of many causes inner management mechanisms on the company have gotten much less efficient.
Inmaculada Arnáez has greater than 20 years of expertise in human rights points. The Spanish lawyer has labored for the United Nations and the Group for Safety and Co-operation in Europe, and he or she has been with Frontex since 2012. As the basic rights officer, she is meant to function independently of the manager director in her job because the company’s inner watchdog. However when Leggeri took the helm in 2015, she rapidly turned conscious of how little concern the brand new chief apparently had for human rights.
Former Frontex workers report that Arnáez was disregarded within the chilly. “We felt like Leggeri simply bypassed her.” They declare that human rights had by no means been his precedence.
“Plain and easily illegal”
The ultimate break between Leggeri and Arnáez got here when the European Parliament granted the basic rights commissioner extra powers in 2019. Arnáez was to be assisted by 40 human rights observers, which might have enabled her workplace to conduct its personal investigations at Europe’s exterior borders. Apparently that was unthinkable for Leggeri.
On Nov. 19, 2019, simply as Arnáez was coming back from an prolonged sickness, the Frontex chief publicly marketed her place. In doing so, Leggeri had additionally bypassed the Frontex Administration Board, since such a job posting requires the board’s approval. He had knowledgeable Arnáez solely a short while earlier than. In a written evaluation obtained by DER SPIEGEL, the European Fee states that Leggeri’s transfer had been “plain and easily illegal” and “may very well be thought of as an try and discredit or weaken” Arnáez.
The Fee pressured Leggeri to withdraw the job posting. However the Frontex chief didn’t surrender. He claimed Arnáez had to get replaced as a result of she does not have sufficient administration expertise to steer 40 workers.
It appears probably, although, that the Frontex chief was primarily bothered by Arnáez due to her advocacy for human rights. Arnáez has repeatedly warned Leggeri in opposition to breaking the legislation. Colleagues say that she believed within the energy of her stories. She recurrently knowledgeable Leggeri about human rights violations within the Aegean Sea and beneficial that he abandon the mission in Hungary, the place Prime Minister Viktor Orbán legalized pushbacks in 2016.
Leggeri ignored the basic rights officer’s stories and continued the operation within the Aegean Sea. He solely withdrew his officers from Hungary a number of weeks in the past after a ruling by the European Court docket of Justice pressured him to take action. When contacted for remark, Leggeri acknowledged that he had all the time valued working along with Arnáez. He added that administration expertise is required within the put up due to the sharp enhance within the price range.
Leggeri nonetheless hasn’t employed the 40 human rights screens to this present day. When grilled by the European Parliament, Leggeri blamed the European Fee for the delays. European Commissioner for Dwelling Affairs Ylva Johansson, who’s chargeable for the portfolio that features Frontex, then accused him of getting misled parliament.
Arnáez has been on medical go away once more since final March. The Frontex Administration Board changed her on an interim foundation with Annegret Kohler, a German nationwide who had beforehand labored in Leggeri’s cupboard. “It’s a transparent battle of curiosity,” says a Frontex official.
The Pushback Affair: How Frontex Lined Up Human Rights Violations
The partitions of the Frontex State of affairs Centre are coated in screens, with surveillance planes and satellites transmitting real-time pictures from border areas. From their desks, Frontex officers can intently monitor occasions happening on the sides of Europe. “You may see how many individuals are sitting in a refugee boat,” says somebody who is aware of the room effectively.
A set of pictures that appeared on screens right here on the night time of April 18-19, 2020, proceed to occupy members of European Parliament till in the present day. They arrive from a Frontex surveillance aircraft flying over the Aegean, in line with a number of inner Frontex stories that DER SPIEGEL has obtained.
Shortly earlier than midnight, Greek border patrol officers intercepted a rubber dinghy simply north of the island of Lesbos and transferred the 20 to 30 refugees onboard their ship. In accordance with prevailing legislation, they need to have then introduced the asylum-seekers to Lesbos, the place they may apply for asylum. As an alternative, although, they put the refugees again into the dinghy after which towed them again towards Turkey.
Greek officers within the coordination middle in Piraeus ordered the Frontex pilots to alter course away from the dinghy. The Frontex crew chief requested if there was a selected purpose for the change in course. “Damaging,” got here the response from the Greeks.
At 3:15 a.m., the Frontex aircraft started working low on gas. The pilot took one final picture, which confirmed the refugees alone at sea, a number of hundred meters from the Turkish coast. No Turkish items have been within the space, the pilot reported. The dinghy, he reported, had no motor and the Greek Coast Guard had sailed off. The refugees, together with 4 kids, have been solely rescued the subsequent morning at 6:52 a.m. by the Turkish Navy.
The Greek Coast Guard has been systematically conducting pushbacks for a number of months. They cease refugee boats in Greek territorial waters and typically destroy their motors earlier than then towing them again towards Turkey. “Aggressive surveillance,” is the official time period the federal government in Athens has provide you with to explain the observe. In truth, it’s unlawful.
Frontex laws require Leggeri to droop missions when he learns of rights violations of a severe nature or which are prone to persist. His forces, in any case, are supposed to guard human rights. However Leggeri insists that he has no dependable details about pushbacks in his possession – although DER SPIEGEL and its reporting companions have exhaustively documented how Frontex items have been close by throughout at the least seven unlawful pushback operations.
Throughout their operations, Frontex personnel are underneath the command of Greek border officers. Already final March, a Greek liaison officer ordered a Danish Frontex unit to desert a gaggle of intercepted refugees at sea, in line with inner emails that DER SPIEGEL has reviewed. However, Frontex determined nothing was mistaken and closed the matter inside a day. Later, in testimony he delivered earlier than the European Parliament, Leggeri claimed the incident had merely been a misunderstanding.
The pushback that occurred off Lesbos within the night time of April 18-19 was exhaustively documented by Frontex officers themselves. There’s a robust perception “that offered info help an allegation of attainable violation of Elementary Rights or worldwide safety obligations such because the precept of non-refoulement,” reads an inner Frontex report that DER SPIEGEL has obtained.
The case was apparently so delicate that Leggeri took private management over the investigation and didn’t, as was normal process, delegate it to his Elementary Rights Officer. On Could 8, he wrote to Ioannis Plakiotakis, the Greek minister of maritime affairs, a letter that DER SPIEGEL has obtained. In it, Leggeri voiced his concern and requested an inner investigation. The observance of human rights, notably the precept of non-refoulement, is an “final requirement” of the Frontex mission, he wrote.
“The Greek Coast Guard unquestionably dedicated a human rights violation within the case.”
The reply from the Greek authorities is a smorgasbord of makes an attempt to elucidate it away. Migration flows within the Aegean characterize a “hybrid nature risk,” the response reads. Due to the corona disaster, it continues, it’s extra vital than ever to forestall unlawful border crossings and not one of the migrants had requested asylum. In accordance with an preliminary evaluation by Greek officers, the letter claims, none of these on board have been particularly want of safety.
Authorized specialists see the Greek response as nugatory. “The Greek Coast Guard unquestionably dedicated a human rights violation within the case,” says Dana Schmalz, a world legislation professional with the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg. From her perspective, it’s a clear case of an unlawful pushback. It’s unattainable, she says, to find out if somebody wants safety or if they’re confronted with hazard again in Turkey on board a rickety dinghy. Particular person proceedings performed on land are essential to make such a dedication, she says. Moreover, she continues, the Greek Coast Guard put the migrants’ lives at risk by abandoning them at sea in a dinghy with out a motor.
However Leggeri was glad with the report. The decision: There was no pushback, there have been no human rights violations. The top of Frontex silently buried the incident. “There have been a number of events when Leggeri has not supplied us with enough info,” says Tineke Strik, a member of European Parliament from the Netherlands.
When reached for remark, Frontex mentioned the Greek authorities had not ascertained any human rights violations. The company has to depend on nationwide authorities to research such incidents, Frontex insisted, since it’s not approved to undertake such investigations itself.
Frontex officers are literally required to report incidents the place they believe that human rights violations might have occurred, so-called “Severe Incident Reviews.” However such stories are rarely written. For years, Frontex officers have adopted the instance of their boss Leggeri: When doubtful, preserve quiet.
Insiders describe the foundations as a type of omertà, a code of silence. Hardly anybody is keen to danger their profession or trigger issues for his or her host nation. In a single case, an official even tried to forestall a Swedish colleague from submitting a Severe Incident Report, the pinnacle of Swedish border management instructed the Frontex Administration Board.
A German federal police officer is without doubt one of the few keen to dissent, although he has requested that we not publish his actual identify. On Nov. 28, 2020, his first day on a Frontex mission on the Greek island of Samos, an article from DER SPIEGEL popped up on his cell phone. The story was in regards to the Uckermark, the ship on which he was scheduled to serve that very night. The article reported that the Germans had stopped a refugee boat on August 10 and handed it over to the Greek Coast Guard, which then proceeded to desert the refugees at sea.
The federal policeman went to his commanding officer and mentioned he could not take part in such operations and basically mentioned he did not need to be an adjunct to any authorized transgressions. Later, he despatched a proof round to his comrades by way of WhatsApp: “I’ve determined for me personally that I can not tolerate the measures taken by the Greeks and definitely can not help them.”
His commanding officer responded a couple of minutes later: “The actual fact is that our actions are authorized! Lined by the Frontex mandate.” He apparently was referring to the requirement to obey orders from the Greek Coast Guard.
The German Federal Police doesn’t contradict the person’s account, however when contacted, the drive denied having taken half in any authorized violations. The policeman himself, nonetheless, had a unique view of the state of affairs. He refused to participate within the mission, preferring as a substitute to remain on land. He says he won’t ever once more volunteer to participate in a Frontex mission.
Dodgy Enterprise: How Leggeri Landed within the Sights of the European Anti-Fraud Workplace
The European Anti-Fraud Workplace (OLAF) all the time will get concerned when there are suspicions that EU monetary pursuits have been violated. And lately, OLAF opened an investigation into Frontex. On Dec. 7, OLAF officers searched Frontex headquarters in Warsaw, together with the places of work belonging to Leggeri and to Head of Cupboard Thibauld de La Haye Jousselin.
Leggeri has but to remark publicly on the investigation. In accordance with members of the German parliament, the Bundestag, Leggeri testified earlier than the Committee on Inner Affairs in January in Berlin and mentioned that the inquiry needed to do with the pushback accusations and that he could not say any extra. That, although, is at finest solely half true.
DER SPIEGEL has discovered that the investigation has a much wider scope than that. For weeks, OLAF officers have been summoning witnesses and interrogating Frontex workers members.
One focus of the investigation is outwardly a attainable case of fraud. A Polish IT firm bought the company a enterprise software program resolution that price a whole lot of hundreds of euros, partially for the coaching of border guards. Frontex workers complained to their superiors, nonetheless, that the software program did not work effectively. However the company however paid many of the negotiated buy worth. In accordance with documentation DER SPEIGEL has seen, workers knowledgeable administration in 2018 that the inconsistencies within the case might quantity to fraud.
Leggeri, too, discovered of the allegations, and an inner investigation was undertaken. “However in line with EU laws, the Frontex director is required to instantly report potential instances of fraud to OLAF,” says Valentina Azarova of the Manchester Worldwide Regulation Centre. Frontex declined to touch upon the OLAF investigation. The Polish software program firm in query insisted that it has so far appropriately fulfilled all of its contractual obligations to Frontex. And the corporate remains to be getting contracts from the European border company, a few of them value tens of millions.
The OLAF investigators are additionally apparently occupied with suspicions of office harassment at Frontex. They hope to search out out if Leggeri or his head of cupboard have yelled at or in any other case harassed company workers. They’re additionally investigating whether or not workers members have been ordered to withhold info from Elementary Rights Officer Arnáez and her successor – and if that’s the case, by whom.
OLAF emphasizes that the presumption of innocence nonetheless applies, regardless of the inquiry, explaining that the existence of the investigation gives no proof that something untoward occurred. However there are apparently severe indications of non-public misconduct on the a part of Leggeri. The gathering of questions being requested by investigators point out vital doubts about his management fashion.
In Brussels, some discuss with Leggeri as “Fabrice Teflon,” with the Frontex boss having so far survived regardless of accusations of mismanagement and allegations that his company was concerned in pushbacks. Now, although, the strain has been cranked up.
European Commissioner Johansson has roughly made it clear that she not considers Leggeri to be tenable in his place. “It has been tough to maintain monitor of the missteps,” says a high-ranking Fee official. “The precedence should be on the long-term popularity of the company. However it has been onerous to reconcile latest actions with that purpose.”
It isn’t, nonetheless, as much as the European Fee to determine Leggeri’s destiny. That could be a choice that should be made by the Frontex Administration Board. The board is actually made up of representatives from these international locations which are a part of the Schengen Space, with the Fee having simply two deputies on the board. EU member states have all the time thrown their help behind Leggeri prior to now. And lots of of them are probably happy by the sometimes ruthless strategies employed by Frontex to forestall asylum-seekers from crossing into the EU, believes Giulia Laganà, a migration professional with the Open Society European Coverage Institute.
The query is whether or not the Administration Board will proceed to again Leggeri as soon as the accusations of office harassment and even potential fraud are made public. The European Parliament has already introduced its intention to conduct a four-month inquiry into the company, with the investigation’s mandate having been stored deliberately broad. Leggeri’s management fashion and the office environment at Frontex are to be included within the inquiry.
Even Leggeri’s personal workers members in Warsaw have begun questioning how lengthy their boss will proceed to cling to his put up. “OLAF is onto us, morale is down,” says one official. “I ponder why he does not simply go away.”