O Diretor Executivo da Frontex diz que gostaria que a Grécia cumprisse as suas obrigações internacionais quando se trata de garantir a segurança dos refugiados e migrantes vulneráveis que se dirigem para a Europa, muitas vezes em embarcações sem condições.
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00:00Welcome to the Europe Conversation, where this week my guest is Executive Director of Frontex, Hans Leitens.
00:14He says he wants to change the culture of the organisation, where saving lives at sea is a key priority.
00:20He also says if he had his way, no migrants would be returned to Libya, where they often face serious human rights abuses.
00:30Hans Leitens, Executive Director
00:32of Frontex. Thank you very much for joining us
00:34on the Europe Conversation. You're welcome.
00:36So Frontex is 20 years coming up
00:38to this year. It was obviously
00:40created to protect the border of the
00:42European Union, but it's growing.
00:44I mean, politically speaking, Ursula von der Leyen,
00:46the President of the Commission, would like to increase
00:48the staff to around 30,000
00:50from where we are now, which is in
00:52around 3,000 staff.
00:53It started actually even less
00:55ambitious than that. It started with being
00:57more of an information hub.
01:00a coalition mechanism, and it was only in
01:022019 when our
01:04mandate became executive. Right now
01:06we are still in the build-up, so in
01:0827 we should have 10,000 to be
01:10deployed in 2028. One of the things
01:12that does obviously
01:13come into your mind when you think of Frontex's
01:16pushbacks, where we've seen certain
01:18coast guards, in particular Greece has been accused
01:20of this many times. Obviously Greece is a country
01:22that has been very much heavily on the front
01:24line when it comes to migration for at least
01:26the past decade, but that
01:27people are being pushed back
01:30away from the coastline
01:32deep into the sea on
01:33unseaworthy vessels, where often
01:36they die. I mean, we had the case of the Adriana
01:38where 600 people died.
01:40And you see all of those images of little
01:42children spread around
01:43the coastline, dead.
01:45Can you tell us about that? Because Frontex does come
01:48under a lot of criticism for it
01:49not taking enough of its responsibility there.
01:52Well, to start with, I think every
01:54single casualty hurts. Hurts
01:56of course the families, but also hurts us. Because
01:58when we took up our job, we
02:00promised to serve and protect. So we're not
02:02sort of the enemy, they're not our
02:04opponents. It's migration, it's a fact
02:06of life, and we have to deal with it. We have to manage
02:08it. So that's to start with.
02:10Then secondly, I think it's important
02:12that
02:12we support the member states. Indeed,
02:16we see and we also
02:18observe ourselves that sometimes there are incidents
02:20that are reported by us, they're
02:22investigated by the Fundamental Rights
02:24Office in most cases, but also the
02:27follow-up of these incidents are with the
02:29member states. I have to work with the
02:32sort of the fact that there is a rule of
02:34law that's functioning, because it's the
02:35commission who needs to make sure that
02:37every member state has a rule of law that
02:39functions.
02:40Emily O'Reilly, the former EU
02:41Ombudsman, was very critical of Frontex, or
02:44at least asked the question, is it
02:46responsible for saving lives at sea?
02:48Because actually you're taking the European
02:50Union, the commission, into this if you
02:52advocate your responsibility. And the
02:54Adriana was one case in point. This
02:56happens all the time.
02:57Difficult thing is, so to start with, we
02:59are not a search and rescue agency as
03:02such. What we do is, in the course of our
03:04mandate, meaning protecting borders, if we
03:07run into something that might be a case
03:09where a ship is in distress, for example,
03:12we play our role in alarming the
03:14responsive and responsible member state or
03:18third country, depending on where it happens. That's what we did in the other case. Actually, I was myself in the monitoring room when we first spotted the ship. So I saw it myself the day before it went down, which is a terrible incident, by the way. Let me be absolutely clear about that. What we can do then, is when we had a plane, we can inform, in this case, the Greek authorities about what we see. We cannot coordinate.
03:41Okay, well, 600 people died, and it was pretty obvious that they were probably going to come into distress. I mean, obviously, you did your duty and you complied. But is there something more you could have done to ensure that those lives were not ended the way they were?
03:55I can tell you what I would like to have done, knowing what I know right now. But the question is, what did we know back then?
04:01And back then, we had one drone flying, one plane flying, and we were instructed to go to another incident south of Greed. That was a real incident. So we had to move on because the overview of that incident was with the Greek authorities.
04:15So then we move on to the next incident, where 80 people on board were also a ship in distress. So, okay, if I would have known before what would have happened, then I would have... I mean, we proposed to the Greek authorities to send another plane twice.
04:33We have been already clear about that from the day after the incident, that we proposed this to the Greek, and both times was ignored by the Greek authorities. That's their decisions then.
04:41Because I think this is a very important point. And I know that your own Fundamental Rights Officer, Jonas Grimheden, has complained about the Greek authorities.
04:49There are many investigations regarding Greece and this illegal pushback, where migrants are pushed away and often, obviously, suffer.
04:59I'm happy to focus on Greece, but let's first start with cooperating with 27 member states and a number of first countries.
05:05So the volume of things we do is much bigger than only in Greece.
05:09I would like in Greece to happen what I would like to happen in every country with whom you cooperate, that they comply with the rules.
05:16And that if there is an incident, and that can happen, that it is duly investigated, that it has consequences.
05:23There's also the investigation into the Syrian family of four who went to Greece, applied for asylum legally.
05:28Before their asylum process had been completed, they were forcibly put onto a plane.
05:32They ended up in Iraq. Of course, they couldn't go back to Syria.
05:36One of their complaints is that the Frontex guards or the guards there separated the parents from their children.
05:41They're trying to make Frontex accountable when it comes to human rights.
05:44The question actually is not so much about what we did, but about our responsibility.
05:48And that is, the question is, okay, should we rely on the decision as it is presented to us by, in this case, the Greek authorities,
05:58in case we have, let's say, a part of a chain of activities, in this case a return activity.
06:05And our decision has been in the past that we cannot, because it's a national responsibility to make a decision and also to make sure that it's done in a proper way.
06:18What we do right now is we check, let's say, the step before us, and that's as far as we can go.
06:24But if the judge would decide that we are fully responsible for the whole chain of events, that would make our life very difficult.
06:31But again, that's a fact of life, then, and then we have to adjust our way of working to that.
06:35In the past, Frontex has said that NGOs saving people at sea are a pull factor from migration.
06:41Do you believe that that is the case?
06:42Well, you never heard me say that.
06:45Actually, I sit in the Italian Senate the opposite.
06:49I have no proof.
06:50Actually, there is scientific proof that it's not the case.
06:53So there have been academia looking at the topic, and they proved.
06:58We do the investigative studies that there's no proof that it is.
07:05And I have no proof of that either.
07:07So for me, NGOs are part of the ecosystem.
07:11I'm in touch with them.
07:12We speak.
07:13We try to understand each other's positions.
07:15We try to make sure that we don't sort of block each other's, because we all see the need to save lives at sea, for example.
07:23But you see Frontex as a role in saving lives at sea.
07:26That's what you also believe.
07:27For sure, we are, yeah.
07:28Because we know that Frontex obviously uses drones and planes to spot ships coming in.
07:34And often they're brought back to places like Libya, where people, and we've seen the longstanding reporting of this, people often face torture, arbitrary arrest.
07:43Can Frontex stand over that when they know that the repercussions for those people is so grave?
07:48Let me be very clear.
07:49I wish there would have been no one returned to Libya, because I fully agree with what you just stated.
07:55That we have a professional dilemma, actually.
07:57Let me just give you an example.
07:59First of all, the Mediterranean is divided in search and rescue zones.
08:04And it's not our invention.
08:06It's UN law who sort of says, okay, who is responsible where?
08:12We do patrolling, what we call pre-frontier.
08:14That means that we fly over international waters, but it includes the search and rescue zones of, indeed, North African countries, like Libya.
08:22When we spot a ship in distress, there's no doubt in my mind that the first responsibility we have is to save lives.
08:30And if it's in real distress, we relay a medical on behalf of the ship.
08:35And if it's in Libyan territory, it's the Libyans who have to take the responsibility, and they do.
08:41And I've been asked, okay, but why don't you just skip the Libyans and only inform the NGOs?
08:45But that would mean that I would play with human lives, because if the NGOs are not available, then there's no coordination, then people might drown.
08:53And I cannot take that responsibility.
08:55So as long, as much as I do not like people to be returned to Libya, if I have to choose, again, I'd rather save lives than not save lives.
09:03Actually, there has been a 38% drop in crossings to the EU, which is actually comparable to the time during COVID when nobody was actually moving.
09:12What do you say is the reason for this?
09:16In this specific case, I think it has to do, we know actually because we have proof of this,
09:20there were two ways how people moved from Tunisia to Lampedusa, for example.
09:26First way was use the ships like the Ariana, so bigger Egyptian often fishing vessels, 500, 600 people on board.
09:36And the other way was using smaller boats.
09:38And these were makeshift metal boats.
09:41They would construct them in 24 hours.
09:43They cost about $1,000, and they could take 30 people on board.
09:47The Tunisians stepped up their enforcement there.
09:51So they stopped this modus operandi.
09:54And that actually explains right now the decrease.
09:57Because you mentioned Tunisia and Egypt, and obviously we talked about Libya before that.
10:00And the EU has done important deals with those two countries to stem the wave of migration.
10:06But would you be concerned about the human rights in those countries?
10:08I always have my concerns, and I should take them on board,
10:12because everything we do has to be assured by at the same time compliance with fundamental rights and also data protection.
10:18At the same time, UNHCR is doing work in Libya right now.
10:21We are not.
10:22IOM is supporting you in the Libyan Coast Guard.
10:26So let's not do as if we are sort of a different species.
10:30We have to cooperate.
10:30Just before I let you go, I want to ask you, are you concerned about the rightward hardline shift amongst member states when it comes to migration?
10:39Sometimes it's perhaps tempting to sort of assume that you can be effective in border guarding without complying with fundamental rights.
10:46I think this is sort of an illusion.
10:50Actually, it's a false contradiction.
10:51I think fundamental rights is actually the basis of how we should do it, because we are Europe.
10:55We are, we agreed to uphold fundamental rights.
11:00We put them actually in our charter.
11:02Every country who joined the union signed by the cross to do this.
11:05And do you think that you'll be able to make sure that that is pervasive within the organization of Frontex,
11:12given, as you mentioned, the Frontex before you joined seemed to have, let's say, not as much regard for that?
11:18You have to have transparency.
11:21And it's not just about the instance.
11:23It's about recruitment.
11:24It's about being a fair organization, being a diverse organization, both in gender but also in nationalities.
11:31So I think it means a lot.
11:33And it's actually an attribute of culture.
11:36And as you know, culture is very difficult to change.
11:38But I think we're making steps right now.
11:39I think it will take for sure the rest of my mandates, which is another three years, to really change it.
11:45And it's not only depending on me.
11:46I think it's depending on all of the leadership of Frontex.
11:49Hans Leitens, Executive Director of Frontex.
11:52Thank you very much for joining us on the Europe Conversation.
11:55You're welcome.
11:55Thank you very much.