Fabrice Leggeri, then Director of Frontex, in Brussels in December 2019. VIRGINIA MAYO/AP
The Director General of Frontex, Frenchman Fabrice Leggeri, has submitted his resignation to the board of the European Border Protection Agency in Warsaw. This was accepted on Friday April 29th. The European Commission announced in a press release that the Deputy Director, Latvian Aija Kalnaja, will act as interim director until a successor is appointed. “Frontex has to be a robust and efficient agency. The Commission will continue to do so [la] full support in this mission,” the statement said.
Fabrice Leggeri took over as President of the Agency in January 2015 and his mandate was renewed in 2019. This 54-year-old Enarque, a native of Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin), has spent much of his career in the Ministry of the Interior, particularly in the post of sub-prefect. He also worked in the Ministry of Defense and was seconded to the European Commission in Brussels.
Frontex accused of illegally returning migrants
“I am resigning my mandate,” Fabrice Leggeri wrote on Thursday 28 April in a short letter to the Frontex board, published by the collaborative media Lighthouse Reports. This Management Board, which met in an extraordinary manner, was in particular to examine a non-public report by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), which was the result of a lengthy investigation that ended in February; OLAF is said to have recommended the opening of disciplinary proceedings against Mr Leggeri, a recommendation which the Board has not followed.
OLAF investigated acts of “harassment”, “misconduct” and “refoulement” of migrants at the external borders of the European Union (EU), say MEPs of Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee, who suspended the accounts of Frontex given the “seriousness” of the Office conclusions submitted to them. “No action was taken on reports of fundamental rights violations in Greece and Hungary, which continued push-back operations of migrants in 2020, despite a ruling by the EU’s Court of Justice that found them incompatible with European law,” the elected officials wrote in a press release dated March 31.
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As early as September 2021, MEPs had called for part of Frontex’s 2022 budget to be frozen until the agency continues to hire 20 fundamental rights officers, the establishment of a reporting mechanism for serious incidents at the EU’s external borders and the creation of a functioning surveillance system of fundamental rights.
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