Frontex pushes back against EU ombudsman’s human rights criticism

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Good morning. Ukraine’s trade minister has told my colleagues that Kyiv would accept trade restrictions with the EU to defuse a bitter political dispute with Poland — but urged the bloc to ban Russian grain imports.

Today, I explain why the rules governing Frontex are unlikely to change despite warnings over human rights by the EU ombudsman. And our central Europe correspondent speaks to a Slovakian think-tank under pressure from the Eurosceptic government in Bratislava.

Business as usual

The chief of Frontex has pushed back against a report by the EU ombudsman questioning whether the EU’s border security agency is well equipped to safeguard human rights.

Context: Following the death of hundreds of people in a shipwreck off the Greek coast last year, EU ombudsman Emily O’Reilly launched an inquiry into the agency’s operations. It concluded last week that the current rules don’t allow Frontex to protect human rights properly, and called for legislative changes.

“I understand the logic the ombudsman is following. I do not really agree with her on a number of things,” Frontex’s chief Hans Leijtens told journalists yesterday.

“We are not the European search and rescue agency. We are the European border and coastguard agency,” Leijtens said.

The ombudsman criticised that Frontex generally depends on local authorities’ permission to assist vessels in distress. In the case of the Adriana shipwreck, Frontex did not receive authorisation from the Greek authorities. It also did not issue its own mayday call to alert other nearby boats, despite reported distress calls from passengers.

“We don’t have the resources to actually do a structural search and rescue effort,” Leijtens said, adding that Frontex complies with international rules on mayday calls.

It seems unlikely its mandate on search and rescue will change: “In our legislative ecosystem, there’s not yet an initiative to start this discussion, but this really would mean huge implications,” Leijtens said.

There is little appetite among the European Commission and the member states to overhaul the agency’s responsibilities. EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson on Monday said that an evaluation had shown that “Frontex is doing well” and its rules should not be changed.

Greece is currently investigating its own role in the shipwreck, with results due “soon”, according to migration minister Dimitris Kairidis.

He would like to see a greater role for Frontex, but not in the sense the ombudsman suggests: “I feel it should be strengthened in the direction of guarding borders,” Kairidis told the FT.

“I don’t believe that Frontex is a human rights organisation,” Kairidis said. “We have to agree that Frontex’s primary responsibility is to monitor and guard the external borders of Europe.”

Chart du jour: Multi-grain

In the search for a European equivalent to Wall Street’s Magnificent Seven, analysts have come up with the “Granolas”, lumping together top pharma, tech and luxury companies. Alphaville argues those companies share a continent, but little else.

Moving out

A key civil society gathering held every summer in Slovakia is moving abroad amid pressure from the country’s Eurosceptic government, writes Raphael Minder.

Think-tank Globsec is for the first time relocating its August gathering — which has hosted French President Emmanuel Macron and other bigwigs in the past — from Bratislava to Prague.

Context: Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, a former supporter and speaker at the Globsec conference himself, has called the event “western propaganda”, apparently angered by Globsec’s links to Slovakia’s liberal opposition. Fico returned to power as the head of a three-party coalition last October, which has also been friendly towards Russia.

In December, Fico announced that the government would cut subsidies to Globsec, which had accounted for 10 per cent of the organisation’s budget. He argued the think-tank had “enough solvent private donors,” singling out billionaire financier George Soros among them.

Fico said that it would be “strange” to support Globsec meetings attended by arms dealers and Soros. His accusations echoed those made by his Hungarian colleague Viktor Orbán, who has long vilified the Budapest-born Soros and its Open Society Foundations.

Globsec founder Róbert Vass told the FT that the relocation was not due to the loss of public funding, noting that Globsec has 80 other financial backers and was not counting on fresh state money for 2024 anyway.

But Vass acknowledged that “under the current political circumstances”, it would be easier to get government leaders and other high-profile speakers to come to Prague rather than Bratislava.

What to watch today

1. European People’s party (EPP) congress in Bucharest begins

2. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visits Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brasília

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