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Frontex boss Fabrice Leggeri: "Every time we discuss with him, it is about human rights violations"
Photo: AP
EU Interior Commissioner Ylva Johansson must have been furious when she read the reports from SPIEGEL and its research partners over the weekend.
Frontex units, it said, were nearby on at least six occasions when Greek border guards pushed boat refugees back into Turkish waters.
In one case, Romanian Frontex border guards even helped with the illegal pushbacks: They stopped a boat, drove dangerously close to it at high speed, and then left it to the Greek coast guard.
As soon as she heard about it, Johansson said on Deutschlandfunk, she called Frontex director Fabrice Leggeri and asked him to investigate the allegations.
"If it turns out that there have been such pushbacks with the participation of Frontex, that is absolutely unacceptable. That should never happen," said Johansson.
The director of Frontex must take full responsibility and investigate.
Frontex has meanwhile announced an internal investigation in a press release.
At the same time, however, the border protection agency stressed that it had not yet found any documents or other materials that would support the allegations made by SPIEGEL and its research partners.
Several Frontex officials told SPIEGEL that reports were being systematically embellished.
Johansson is unlikely to be satisfied with the announcement of the investigation.
After consultations with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, she asked for an urgent, extraordinary meeting of the Frontex management board, she tweeted on Wednesday.
The allegations should be discussed on November 10th.
By then, at the latest, Leggeri will have to provide answers.
European Parliament wants to summon Leggeri
The European Parliament is also putting Leggeri under pressure.
Several factions are calling for clarification and want to summon Leggeri.
"It cannot be that with Frontex we have created a monster that is not accountable to anyone and stands above the law," said Sophie in't Veld of the liberal "Renew Europe" group in SPIEGEL.
It is also about Leggeri's credibility, after all, the current allegations are not the first.
"That's ridiculous, we are Europe"
Sophie in't Veld, Renew Europe
"Every time we discuss human rights violations with Leggeri, he always refers to the responsibility of the member states."
The complaints would therefore end in nowhere.
"This is ridiculous, we are Europe. We cannot create a border protection agency with 10,000 armed staff that violates fundamental rights and then teach Belarus lessons."
The Liberals also put written questions to the Commission on Wednesday.
Among other things, they want to know whether they are planning their own independent investigation.
The allegations must be thoroughly investigated and cleared up, says Lena Düpont, CDU MEP in the conservative EPP.
"If they turn out to be correct, this must have consequences."
Tineke Strik, MP for the Greens, also says: "We believe that these allegations are so serious that Leggeri's position is at stake".
The agency should no longer monitor itself.
Frontex even seems to be covering up the Greek pushbacks.
In the area where the border protection agency operates, international law is systematically broken, says Karl Kopp, European director of Pro Asyl.
"Nevertheless, Frontex is still playing the innocence from Warsaw".
In fact, the systematic Greek pushbacks are so well documented that Leggeri is faced with fundamental questions.
His officials now have to assume that any refugee they hand over to the Greek coast guard could be dumped hours later on the open sea.
The Social Democrats have requested an urgent debate in the Interior Committee of the European Parliament, in which Leggeri should take a position.
Above all, the Greens, leftists and liberals are pushing for the Interior Committee to conduct its own investigation.
The Schengen working group, which is part of the committee, should examine the reports and draw up a report quickly.
There are enough open questions.
To date, Frontex has avoided taking a position on the individual pushbacks at which Frontex units can be shown to have been in the vicinity.
In the current press release, Frontex also speaks of having asked the Greek authorities "earlier this year" to investigate two incidents.
"They found no evidence of illegal activity in one incident, and investigations into another are ongoing," it said.
In July, however, Leggeri had declared himself to the members of the Interior Committee.
He did not mention any findings about pushbacks, he only heard about it from the news, he said.
Leggeri also did not mention the two incidents reported to the Greek authorities that Frontex is now talking about.
It wasn't until days later that Leggeri wrote to the committee chairman that his agency had recorded a pushback from the air.
"We want to know when the Executive Director was informed about which incidents and whether he informed Parliament to the best of his ability about these events," says Social Democrat Birgit Sippel.
The Left MP
Cornelia Ernst
becomes even clearer: "Fabrice Leggeri lied to the committee," she said.
The Commission must act and dismiss Leggeri.
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