Frontex: Brussels wants a 30,000-strong agency, but sovereignty cannot do without the rule of law

On Tuesday 27 October, Brussels unveiled the most ambitious reform of Frontex since 2019. The European border and coast guard agency, based in Warsaw, would see its staff triple and its role extend well beyond the Union's coasts and borders. The text still has to be negotiated with the member states and the European Parliament, but it already sets a clear direction: making migrant returns the core of European migration policy.

What the Commission is proposing

According to the European Commission's press release, Frontex's standing corps would gradually be raised to 30,000 officers. This would involve doubling the agency's own staff, creating a European reserve of 17,000 officers for borders and returns, and keeping the 7,000 officers seconded by member states. According to AFP, this build-up would be spread over some fifteen years. To gauge the change, the European Court of Auditors counted 2,545 staff in 2024, as Toute l'Europe points out.

The main novelty concerns returns. A dedicated coordination centre would be created. Above all, Frontex could help third countries organise returns from one non-European country to another, provided an agreement is signed with the country concerned. As AFP reports, the agency could also take part in the future "return hubs" located outside the Union, the first of which is expected to open in Rwanda for rejected asylum seekers from Germany, Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands and Austria.

Finally, the project provides for a quick reaction force, deployable at very short notice at the request of a state facing an emergency, and a centre monitoring public social media. States would have to report within 24 hours any event having a significant impact on the borders. Euronews, which revealed the project the day before, says Frontex would receive 12 billion euros in the next multiannual budget, double its current allocation. This figure does not appear in the official press release.

The arguments on each side

The Commission justifies the reform by "new challenges": smuggling networks, the instrumentalisation of migration, and the Ceuta crisis at the end of July, when several thousand people entered the Spanish enclave and Frontex was slow to be mobilised, according to AFP. Brussels also highlights results: according to Toute l'Europe, irregular crossings have reportedly more than halved in two years and the return rate is said to exceed 30%.

It is for Europe to decide who enters our Union and under what circumstances. — Ursula von der Leyen

An EU official quoted anonymously by Euronews sums up the logic: the more people are returned before reaching Europe, the fewer have to be returned afterwards. According to AFP, many member states have reportedly welcomed the text.

On the left and among NGOs, criticism is sharp. According to AFP, Green MEP Mélissa Camara denounces a response made of "ever more repression" in the face of human tragedies. A researcher at the Transnational Institute, interviewed by Euronews, describes a deportation agency operating ever further from the Union's borders. The NGO Statewatch recalls that the investigation by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) had uncovered serious incidents that were poorly reported and access denied to the agency's fundamental rights officer, before its director resigned in 2022.

A sovereignty that cannot do without the rule of law

The Commission's argument must be taken seriously. A Union that does not control its borders feeds the extremes and weakens the Schengen area, from which France derives considerable benefit. The effective return of rejected applicants is the condition for the credibility of the right of asylum itself. On this point, the Gaullist tradition does not compromise: the State, and Europe when it acts in its name, must be able to enforce its decisions.

But sovereignty is not arbitrariness. Three questions remain without a clear answer. First, oversight: the Commission's press release states that the agency will act in full respect of fundamental rights, without detailing new safeguards to match the new powers. Second, accountability: when Frontex helps a North African country return nationals of Central Africa, who will answer for possible abuses, the agency, the partner state or no one? Finally, diplomatic consistency: outsourcing returns means depending on third-country governments that may, in turn, use migrants as a lever of pressure, precisely what Europe says it wants to fight.

For France, the stakes are twofold. Paris has an interest in an agency able to support frontline states, as Ceuta showed. It also has a tradition as the homeland of human rights and a defender of international law that it cannot sacrifice to a show of efficiency.

Conclusion: strengthen resources, strengthen oversight

The negotiation opening in the Council and the European Parliament offers an opportunity. France could make its support conditional on a simple principle: every new Frontex power must come with new oversight. This would require a fundamental rights officer with real resources, independent observers present during operations outside the Union, and regular reporting to the European Parliament. An agency of 30,000 officers can be a tool of European sovereignty. It must still remain, wherever it operates, the instrument of a Union founded on the rule of law.

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.