26 October 2024
Dear Ms. Ursula von der Leyen,
October 26 will mark the 20th anniversary of Frontex, the EU’s border agency. It should also mark the last.
Frontex is a deadly failed experiment. It has made countless people less safe, eroded the values and ideals the European Union claims to hold dear, and provided a backdoor into government for corporate power.
When Frontex was found to be complicit in systematic and serious human rights violations in Greece – by none other than the EU’s own anti-fraud watchdog – this should have given Europe pause for thought.
Instead, Frontex has only expanded, putting a European stamp of approval on murderous border regimes. In the mission letter you wrote to the new Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration, you call for Frontex’s standing corps to be increased to 30,000. Frontex patrols the world’s deadliest borders, at which at least 60,000 people have died since 1993.
In Bulgaria and Greece, Frontex missions work with border guards who beat and abuse people seeking safety and chase them through the forests with dogs. In the central Mediterranean, Frontex guides violent Libyan militias towards people on boats in distress. In North Africa, Frontex works with regimes that detain people in deadly torture camps or leave them for dead in the desert. There is no denying that those often impacted by these fundamental rights abuses, are racialised and other minoritised communities.
Frontex has also opened Europe’s doors to lobbyists. It holds hundreds of meetings with arms and surveillance executives, spending billions that could be going toward helping people but are instead being siphoned into the pockets of profiteers.
These corporate relationships also deepen Frontex’s complicity in abuse. The drones that communicate the position of boats in distress to Libyan militias are also those developed by Israeli firm IAI for use in the occupation of Palestine.
Frontex destroys and undermines the values Europe espouses. It is no coincidence that its former director now sits in the European Parliament on behalf of the far Right, or that another former deputy director spoke publicly about the agency’s inability to prevent far Right infiltration.
On this anniversary, we are calling on you, the European Commission, and EU leaders to put an end to two decades of failure by:
- Abolishing Frontex: The agency has shown that it cannot be reformed. It is time to end it, and redirect its ballooning budget to policies that ensure the protection of all humanity and fundamental rights.
- Replacing it with a migration policy rooted in care and compassion: Redistributing funds to provide access to safe pathways and support for people migrating;
- Ending the incarceration of people in detention centres, and dismantling the deportations regime.
- Ending discriminatory surveillance: Dismantle the surveillance regime that spies on people migrating, in particular racialised people, violates their privacy, and endangers all of our rights.
- Prioritising a fairer future for everyone: Invest in public housing, welfare, education, health care, legal aid, employment, and a clean environment that is accessible to everyone, regardless of immigration status.
As economies falter, conflicts surge, and climate change wreaks havoc on both sides of the Mediterranean, Europe faces a choice. It can double down on its history of extraction, militarism, colonialism, and exploitation; pursuing policies that cause people to migrate while making borders ever more violent.
Or you can choose a path that genuinely protects everyone, stepping away from the untenable discourse that migration is a security problem rather than a humanitarian and political issue. What you and European leaders do next will shape our world irrevocably, for better or worse.
Supporting groups and organisations:
Abolish Frontex
ADE Aide aux Droits des personnes Etrangères Douarnenez
Afrique-Europe Interact
All Included Amsterdam
Alternatif Bilisim (AiA-Alternative Informatics Association, Turkey)
ARTICLE 19:
Aspiration
BAAS – Be Aware and Share
Balkanbrücke
Baobab Experience
Bienvenidas Refugiadas Málaga
Bits of Freedom
borderline-europe – Menschenrechte ohne Grenzen e. V
Calais Food Collective
Campaign Against Arms Trade
Captain Support Network
Caravana Abriendo Fronteras
Care4Calais
Channel Info Project
Collectif Soutien Migrants 13/Al Manba
Collective Aid
CompassCollective
Divest Borders (People & Planet)
EmpowerVan
End Deportations Belfast
Equal Legal Aid
Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice
Europe Cares e.V.
European Digital Rights (EDRi)
European Network Against Racism (ENAR)
European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance (ESWA)
Feminist Antimilitarist Collective
Fresh Eyes
Global Campaign for Free Expression
Global Campaign to Reclaim People’s Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity
Glocal Roots
Grenzenlose Wärme – Refugee Relief Work e.V.
Habibi.Works (Soup & Socks, eV)
Herts for Refugees
Homo Digitalis
Inter Alia
InterEuropean Human Aid Association Germany e.V.
Kaleidoscope
L’ Auberge des Migrants
L’Aurora – Grup de Suport
La Cimade
La Mif (Militant·e·s pour l’Interdiction des Frontières)
Lexine Alpert
Love Without Borders
MERA25 Deutschland
Migranos-Movement
Migrants’ Rights Network
migration-control.info project
MiGreat
Migreurop
Missing Voices (REER)
Mobile Info Team
Mouvement Uplifted Africa – MUA
NGO Ecosistemas, Chile
No Name Kitchen
Observatoire des violences policières en Belgique
Otros Mundos Chiapas, México
Plateforme Migr’Afrique
Privacy International
Project ELPIDA e.V.
Project Play
Push Back Alarm Austria
r42-SailAndRescue
Red SOS Refugiados Europa
Refugee Woman Centre
ROOD, Socialistische Jongeren
Sea-Watch
Second Tree
SeebrücCitizen D / Državljan D
SETEM Catalunya
Solidarité sans frontières
Statewatch
Stop Deportations Vienna
Stop the War on Migrants
Stop Wapenhandel
The Channel Monitoring Project
Transbalkan Solidarity Collective
Transnational Institute
Un Ponte Per
Utopia 56
Woodyard
Würzburg Solidarisch e.V.
Yoga and Sport with Refugees