At a time when fear guides European choices and when measures guaranteeing the “security” of European citizens are the priority, the EU trumps all on security in matters of migration policies by enhancing the means and missions of the Frontex agency, coordinating the control of the EU’s external borders.

These measures include reinforcing the role of Frontex as regards the removal of migrants from "sorting centers" and "HotSpots," greater independence and deployment capacity at Europe’s borders, a significant increase in its budget, access to police databases to fight against terrorism, and enhanced external cooperation collaboration with states that do not respect human rights.

These measures are turning Frontex into a "super control agency" that is uncontrolled and uncontrollable!

For the past 10 years, civil society has denounced the opacity of the agency’s activities and the lack of oversight from the European or national parliaments. Moreover, it has exposed the impossibility to object to a decision taken against migrants by the agency or lodge a complaint before an independent body in the case of human rights violations.

Frontex and fundamental rights

By preventing people from leaving transit countries and by preventing them from reaching EU soil - two elements at the core of the agency’s activities - Frontex is also breaching fundamental rights, in particular the right to seek asylum and the non-refoulement principle, as well as the right to leave any country.

Our organizations are convinced that Frontex’s mission is incompatible with the respect of fundamental rights and the reception and protection of people in migration, in line with EU law and with the values it supposedly stands for.

A fantasy

Through Frontex, Europe is pursuing its security obsession based on a fantasy of invasion, thereby stirring up the incorrect association between migration and criminality, if not terrorism. It is urgent to put an end to the agency’s activities and to radically reconsider the European migration policy so as to guarantee solidarity and peace.

Europe is at war against an imaginary enemy! Read more about the Frontexit campaign here.