In the afternoon of 25 January, a boat carrying 38 people, all Afghans, had almost reached land in the north of Lesvos, when they were stopped by two vessels from the Greek Coast guard, and illegally pushed back to Turkey.
This happened while a Latvian Frontex vessel was present, seemingly only observing. It did nothing to intervene while these violations were performed by Greek authorities in front of them.
After a short chase, the officer on the Greek coast guard RIB managed to destroy the engine of the vessel carrying the Afghan people by beating it with a stick. This left the rubber boat immobilized, dead in the water.
In the videos taken by the refugees and presented to Aegean Boat Report, three vessels can be seen, two from the Greek coastguard – a white two-engine speedboat and a Lambro 57 coastal patrol vessel – and a Latvian registered OPS vessel, ID number RK-30, currently a part of Frontex’ Operation Poseidon, stationed on Lesvos.
The Greek coast guard towed the rubber boat back towards Turkey, and sat it adrift inside Turkish waters, leaving 38 people helplessly drifting in the middle of the sea.
A few hours later, they were found by the Turkish coast guard and taken back to Turkey.
The Latvian Frontex vessel, clearly present while this was happening, should have filed a report after the incident, as the agency’s rules state its operatives must report any incident in which there are suspicions or indications that violations of international laws or human rights have been committed; this time by Greek authorities.
In this case, since the rubber boat carrying 38 people had been stopped and towed back, and this had happened while a Frontex vessel had been present, there shouldn’t be much doubt that the Greek coast guard had performed an illegal pushback.
Strangely enough, no report was filed by the captain of the Latvian Frontex vessel. We can only speculate about why this wasn’t done.
According to EBCG Regulation and the Frontex Codes of Conduct, every participant in Frontex operational activities, must immediately report in the form of a Serious Incident Report (SIR), any situation of possible violations of fundamental rights.
Despite this clear ruling, we have investigated several cases – many of which we will publish the coming month – in which Frontex vessels have been involved in, or at least present during, pushbacks.
One common factor in all these cases is that Frontex vessels involved have not filed any reports. This means they are deliberately covering up Greek authorities’ human rights violations.
In the last four years we have registered 3.000 pushback cases, involving 82.000 people, carried out in the Aegean Sea by Greek authorities.
Throughout this four-year period, Frontex has had a heavy presence in the area: thousands of officers, hundreds of vessels, surveillance aircraft and high-tech equipment that have cost European taxpayers billions.
We would expect, with this kind of heavy investment in border surveillance, that they not only see and report on the people trying to reach Europe, but also those who have been “transported” illegally out of Europe.
Frontex informs, on a daily basis, Greek authorities about boats trying to cross into Europe in the Aegean Sea, which indicates that it has at least some control over or at least awareness of what is happening at sea in this area.
What is strange and difficult to understand is that they don’t report on pushbacks performed by Greek authorities in the same sea area, as if they are deliberately covering up these human rights violations to protect and ensure that Frontex can continue to operate in Greece.
As mentioned earlier, 3.000 pushback cases have been registered in the Aegean Sea in the last four years. What percentage of these cases would it be reasonable to believe that Frontex, because of their heavy presence in the area, have been witness to? And if they have not seen them, what are they doing? Why are they wasting our money on people and equipment which cannot see events taking place in the precise place they are working?
If I told you that in these four years, only 3 (that’s three) SIRs have been filed by Frontex officers on duty in Operation Poseidon, would you find it strange, a bit too good – or in fact bad – to be true? The EU’s border agency saw just 0.1 per cent of even the pushbacks we know have been carried out by the Greek Authorities? It seems astonishing.
We of course understand that Frontex, even with all their resources in the area, can’t see everything, but it would be reasonable to expect that they would have the same possibility to see traffic leaving the area they are surveiling, as their reports to alert the Greek Coastguard indicate they have to see that arriving.
How can Frontex explain that their officers have only filed reports on possible human rights violations – remember that they are not told to report when they are certain of such a violation, but when there is any possibility one has been committed – in just 0.1 per cent of the registered pushbacks performed by Greek authorities in the area in the last four years. It’s nothing short of remarkable. Astonishing, in fact.
It’s evident that Frontex, the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency, is systematically, not only covering up Greek human rights violations, but also is directly involved in pushback activities in Greece.
After the OLAF report – the report by the EU’s watchdog OLAF, which revealed Frontex had systematically ignored pushbacks carried out by the Greek Coastguard – was published, forcing the resignation of Frontex executive director Fabrice Leggeri in 2022, we expected (or at least were entitled to expect) to see drastic changes in how Frontex operates.
When the new head of Frontex, Hans Leijtens, took office in 2023, he promised to “restore trust” in the agency whose officers, the OLAF report proved, had turned a blind eye to the illegal pushbacks of men, women and children at several EU borders.
Leijtens said he wanted to make sure all his staff worked within “the boundaries of the legal framework” and emphasized that he was “responsible for the fact that my people don’t participate in anything called a pushback.”
He said the agency would be unable to carry out their jobs without that trust.
Leijtens promised to govern the future work of the agency with three principles, accountability, respect for fundamental rights and transparency, in which he has failed miserably.
We wonder if Hans Leijtens will, since he said he was responsible, take full responsibility for the illegal activities performed by Frontex officers under Operation Poseidon, and resign as head of Frontex?
Leijtens hasn’t made any significant changes in Frontex. At best he’s nothing more than a puppet doing the Commissions bidding, a bad reflection of his predecessor Leggeri, new wrapping, perhaps, but the same content.
Speaking of Frontex’ leadership, however, we must also ask when the European Commission will take seriously its responsibility for the rule of law and fundamental rights in Europe?
The Commission refused to publish the OLAF report – the reason the people of Europe have learnt anything at all about the report and the actions of an agency the EU Commission has direct control over, and which it uses our money to pay for, is because it was leaked to a newspaper.
A little while before that, the EU Commission’s vice president for ‘promoting {previously ‘protecting’} our European way of life’, Margaritis Schinas – a Greek politician formerly of Nea Dimokratia, the party which has ordered the thousands of pushbacks carried out by the Greek Coastguard in the last four years, and with overall responsibility for the actions and behaviour of Frontex – boasted that ‘I have not read’ the OLAF report: it had been available to him and his colleagues for six months.
What does K. Schinas think his job is, if not to read investigative reports carried out and composed by the EU’s watchdog agency into a body he is responsible for? He didn’t deny that the OLAF report was true – this would have been impossible to stand up, but would at least have shown he was engaged in some way – but said he hadn’t even read it. How is a man happy to not just admit but boast about such neglect of his post allowed to retain it? Has the Commission lost control even of itself?
Not only that, when Leggeri was – correctly – forced to resign, he stated in a letter made public that he had been instructed on taking over at Frontex that it was to be a uniformed border control force, charged with preventing people seeking safety from entering the EU. This is not what Frontex is supposed to be, by the Commission’s own definition. It is certainly not what members of the EU Parliament are asked to approve Frontex’ budget for – at least in public.
Perhaps more importantly, there are only three people in the Commission with any power to make demands of Frontex’ Chief Executive. We are happy to name them, as the information is in the public arena:
- the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson (who has at least had the decency on occasion to accept pushbacks are taking place and to criticise them)
- the previously named Margaritis Schinas (who denies any pushbacks have ever taken place and was until taking his EU post a member of the party carrying them out), and
- EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has been a prominent opponent of people entering the EU, and in March 2020 told Nea Dimokratia members that Greece was ‘the EU’s shield’ in the immediate aftermath of the party illegally sending soldiers and armed police to open fire (with rubber bullets) on, and teargas, men, women and children attempting to enter the EU from Türkiye.
Despite this, there has been absolutely no investigation by the EU Commission or any other EU body into what would have been an absolute violation of European law, and, by misleading the elected members of the European Parliament, also of the rule of law at EU level, and the European public.
Why is this? What does the Commission stand for, if not the upholding and implementation of European law?
We cannot sit back and simply allow this horrendous violation of the law, of Frontex regulations, and of simple human decency, to continue.
The Commission must investigate how Frontex has been so twisted from its stated purpose, and why its officers see fit to break even the agency’s own rules. It must also launch infringement proceedings against the Greek authorities for systematic and widespread violations of international law and human rights.
Finally, given all the above, it’s time for Frontex to pull out of Greece.