The European Commission is set to publish a proposal for a new Frontex regulation in the second half of this year. The review is expected to expand the mandate of the EU border agency, strengthening its role in deportations, border externalisation, and the collection and processing of personal data. It is also likely to broaden the agency’s remit beyond border ‘security’ and control to include responding to so-called “hybrid threats”, while further expanding its Standing Corps and doubling its budget. These developments are particularly concerning given Frontex’s increasingly central role in the EU’s violent, human rights-violating border regime.
Mandate review
Frontex began operating in 2005 as a small agency tasked with coordinating border ‘security’ and control at the EU’s external borders. Since 2015 in particular, its role, mandate, organisation and budget have expanded rapidly. The agency has started building up its own armed border guard corps, acquired its own surveillance equipment, taken on a more active role in deportations, and launched operations in non-EU countries. The last revision of the Frontex mandate, in 2019, significantly increased the agency’s powers.
In July 2024, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented her Political Guidelines 2024–2029, outlining the programme for the new Commission. She announced plans to “strengthen Frontex, notably to equip it with state-of-the-art technology for surveillance and situational awareness, along with its own equipment and personnel to ensure it can protect our borders in all circumstances”. She also proposed tripling the size of the Standing Corps to 30,000 border guards. These plans were reiterated in the EU’s Internal Security Strategy (April 2025) and Asylum and Migration Management Strategy (January 2026), both of which also emphasise expanding Frontex’s operational role in deportations.
In summer 2025 the Commission launched a public consultation on updating the Frontex Regulation, with the aim of presenting a legislative proposal in the third quarter of 2026. Meanwhile, the Commission’s proposal for the next EU-budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2028–2034, includes €11.9 billion to Frontex – doubling the agency’s budget under the current 2021–2027 MFF.
Proposed changes
Although the content of the Commission’s proposal is not yet known, it has indicated that it intends to address several key areas, including:
- Expansion of its workforce and equipment pool
Frontex is currently building its own 10,000-strong armed Standing Border Guard Corps, which is deployed in Frontex operations both inside and outside the EU and assists member states with border control, border surveillance and deportations. As noted above, the Commission has proposed increasing the corps to 30,000 personnel.
Initially dependent on equipment provided by member states, Frontex has been able to purchase or lease its own equipment since 2011. Following budget increases from 2017 onwards, it has signed several major contracts, particularly for aerial surveillance, although debates over its procurement strategy have delayed many plans. The Commission now intends to further expand Frontex’s own equipment pool, especially its surveillance capabilities.
Frontex’s expansion of surveillance across EU external borders and beyond has largely served the detection, apprehension and often subsequent pushback of people on the move. Rarely has such equipment served search and rescue.
- A larger role in deportations, inside and outside the EU
Frontex’s involvement in deportations has evolved from coordinating joint return flights at the request of groups of member states to taking a far more active operational role, including initiating deportations itself. In 2025, it assisted in the deportation of more than 60,000 people. Under the EU’s new Deportation Regulation, adopted in June 2026, Frontex’s responsibilities will be expanded further, covering support for deportations, information exchange, cooperation with non-EU countries, and implementation of a new digital return architecture.
In connection with the controversial plans to establish ‘return hubs‘ – detention centers in non-EU countries where people on the move can be transferred to from the EU – the Commission may also include provisions allowing Frontex to assist with deportations from one non-EU country to another as part of the new regulation.
- Expanded powers to collect, process and share personal data
The EU operates a range of biometric identity databases in the field of border and migration management. Although most are managed by the agency eu-LISA, Frontex has gained increasing access to them, also in the context of a longer running project to make them interoperable.
According to the Commission, “the rules on processing relevant data, including personal data, are complex, but also incomplete, and hinder Frontex’s work on situational awareness, cross-border crime prevention and return activities”. This suggests that the proposed regulation will seek to simplify and expand Frontex’s ability to collect, process and share personal data. Such changes would also be in line with the new working arrangement between Europol and Frontex signed in July 2026, and the new Europol proposal of June 2026 that would allow Frontex to have access on a hit/no-hit basis and on condition of reciprocity to Europol systems (Article 80, Europol Regulation Proposal 2026/0165 (COD)).
The increasing morphing of databases set up for differing purposes, such as migration control and criminal investigations, gives rise to concerns regarding privacy, data protection, bias (including racial profiling) and respect for fundamental rights. Broader access to the Schengen Information System, which under the new Deportation Regulation will be used as the register for issued deportation orders and for people on the move marked as security threats, for example makes every law enforcement officer a potential ‘migrant hunter’.
- Expanded cooperation with and operations in non-EU countries
Over the past decade, the EU has increasingly focused on border externalisation, relying on non-EU countries to prevent people on the move from ever reaching the EU’s external borders. Frontex has played an expanding role in this process, moving beyond working arrangements – primarily focused on the readmission of deported people – via the exchange of intelligence, risk analysis and (biometric) data to conducting its own border operations in several non-EU countries.
As part of the regulation review, the Commission argues that “the rules governing Frontex’s cooperation with third countries are not suited to the diversity of third countries that it has to work together with. Moreover, they are not sufficiently flexible, which limits Frontex’s ability to adjust its operational support to emerging needs”, and calls for the “prioritisation and expansion of operations in third countries”.
An ad hoc coalition of ten member states, including Poland and Spain, echoed this position in a non-paper published in February 2026, arguing that “a stronger Frontex presence is needed in third countries, particularly in countries of origin and transit”. It is therefore likely that the Commission’s proposal will include a framework allowing broader and more flexible cooperation agreements with non-EU countries. Apart from the direct consequences for people on the move this also often leads to legitimizing and strengthening authoritarian regimes, reinforcing their capacities for internal repression as well.
- Situational awareness and ‘hybrid threats’
The Commission also suggests to introduce legislative measures on “situational awareness to enable, among other things, a faster and better response to hybrid threats”. This could broaden Frontex’s remit beyond migration management and cross-border crime.
Discussion regarding ‘hybrid threats’ so far has primarily focused on the highly problematic narrative of so-called ‘instrumentalisation of migration’, of which for example Belarus has been accused. Describing people on the move as ‘instruments’ (or even ‘weapons’) of adversary governments conflates migration with a defence agency and further legitimizes violent responses against them.
On top of that there have also been proposals to involve Frontex in for example responding to drone incursions or attacks on infrastructure. Member states reportedly hold widely differing views on these proposals, so it remains unclear how far they will be reflected in the revised mandate. Any move in this direction, however, would push Frontex further into the military sphere and deepen its contribution to the EU’s mass militarisation agenda.
No need for (more) Frontex
All of the major elements expected to feature in the revised Frontex Regulation point towards further expansion of the agency’s mandate, operational role, geographical presence – both inside and outside the EU – and institutional infrastructure. This would only worsen the many issues associated with the agency, including its responsibility for violence, pushbacks and human rights violations, its cooperation with authoritarian regimes and its poor handling of personal data, as well as the lack of accountability and the impunity enjoyed by its personnel for all this. Even without a new mandate, Frontex’s activities, capabilities and presence have expanded rapidly in recent years, aggravating many of these structural flaws and the overall fortification of the border, resulting in deaths and disappearances.
During the review process, some NGOs and Members of the European Parliament will undoubtedly once again call for stronger transparency, accountability and oversight. Previous efforts have proven woefully insufficient, symbolized by the Fundamental Rights Officer, which has no institutional independence nor any enforcement power. However, such proposals fail to address the underlying structure. Frontex is fulfilling the role assigned to it by the EU and its member states: serving as the operational flagship of the EU’s violent, human rights-abusing border regime. The core problem is the agency’s existence itself. Frontex does not need a new mandate or a new regulation. It does not need reform. It needs to be abolished.