16 Facts About Frontex

European Border and Coast Guard Agency, known as Frontex, is an agency of the European Union headquartered in Warsaw, Poland, exercising in coordination with the border and coast guards of member states the border control of the European Schengen Area, a task within the area of freedom, security and justice domain.

Frontex was established in 2004 as the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders and is primarily responsible for coordinating border control efforts.

Frontex denies taking part in pushbacks; the claims are currently under investigation by EU anti-fraud agency OLAF.

Frontex' mission is to help European Union member states implement EU rules on external border controls and to coordinate cooperation between member states in external border management.

Frontex has representatives from and works closely with Europol and Interpol.

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New Agency was proposed by the European Commission on 15 December 2015 to strengthen Frontex, widely seen as being ineffective in the wake of the European migrant crisis.

Limitations of the former EU border agency, Frontex, hindered its ability to effectively address and remedy the situation created by the refugee crisis: it relied on the voluntary contributions by Member States as regards resources, it did not have its own operational staff and it did not have an explicit mandate to conduct search and rescue operations.

Ever since Frontex was transformed into the Agency in 2016, the broader mandate has been deemed controversial, and the issue of whether the EU or the member state were competent in border management has been a matter of debate.

Fabrice Leggeri, the head of Frontex, dismissed turning Triton into a search and rescue operation, saying it would "support and fuel the business of traffickers".

The Turkish General Staff reported that the Latvian Frontex aircraft had violated Turkish airspace west of Didim.

Frontex officials stated that they simply ignored the Turkish warnings as they were not in Turkish airspace and continued their duties.

Frontex later took photographs of the Turkish Coast Guard escorting illegal immigrants towards Greek waters and the photos accompanied by written evidence were submitted to EU authorities.

On 20 November 2009, the Turkish General Staff issued a press note alleging that an Estonian Border Guard aircraft Let L-410 UVP taking off from Kos on a Frontex mission had violated Turkish airspace west of Soke.

In 2020, ships of Frontex were complicit in so-called illegal "pushbacks" of migrants attempting to reach mainland Europe via Greek waters.

In February 2021, Frontex was accused of its staff meeting "with scores of unregistered lobbyists that represent the weapons, surveillance and biometrics industries".

In 2018, the agency told MEPs in response to a question: “Frontex only met with registered lobbyists who are registered in the EU Transparency Register … no meetings were held in 2017.