Open Letter Abolish Frontex for its 20th Anniversary

Advocacy / By

ELA has joined more than 80 organisations in a letter to Ursula von der Leyen calling for the abolition of Frontex and its replacement with a migration policy based on care and compassion that redistributes resources to provide access to safe routes and support for people on the move.

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.

Signatories:

  1. Abolish Frontex
  2. ADE Aide aux Droits des personnes Etrangères Douarnenez
  3. Afrique-Europe Interact
  4. All Included Amsterdam
  5. Alternatif Bilisim (AiA-Alternative Informatics Association, Turkey)
  6. ARTICLE 19:
  7. Aspiration
  8. BAAS – Be Aware and Share
  9. Balkanbrücke
  10. Baobab Experience
  11. Bienvenidas Refugiadas Málaga
  12. Bits of Freedom
  13. borderline-europe – Menschenrechte ohne Grenzen e. V
  14. Campaign Against Arms Trade
  15. Captain Support Network
  16. Caravana Abriendo Fronteras
  17. Collectif Soutien Migrants 13/Al Manba
  18. CompassCollective
  19. Divest Borders (People & Planet)
  20. EmpowerVan
  21. End Deportations Belfast
  22. Equal Legal Aid
  23. Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice
  24. Europe Cares e.V.
  25. European Digital Rights (EDRi)
  26. European Network Against Racism (ENAR)
  27. European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance (ESWA)
  28. Feminist Antimilitarist Collective
  29. Fresh Eyes
  30. Global Campaign for Free Expression
  31. Global Campaign to Reclaim People’s Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity
  32. Glocal Roots
  33. Grenzenlose Wärme – Refugee Relief Work e.V.
  34. Habibi.Works (Soup & Socks, eV)
  35. Homo Digitalis
  36. Inter Alia
  37. InterEuropean Human Aid Association Germany e.V.
  38. Kaleidoscope
  39. L’Aurora – Grup de Suport
  40. La Cimade
  41. La Mif (Militant·e·s pour l’Interdiction des Frontières)
  42. Louise Michel
  43. Lexine Alpert
  44. Love Without Borders
  45. MERA25 Deutschland
  46. Migranos-Movement
  47. Migrants’ Rights Network
  48. migration-control.info project
  49. MiGreat
  50. Migreurop
  51. Missing Voices (REER)
  52. Mobile Info Team
  53. Mouvement Uplifted Africa – MUA
  54. NGO Ecosistemas, Chile
  55. No Borders In Climate Justice
  56. No Name Kitchen
  57. Observatoire des violences policières en Belgique
  58. Otros Mundos Chiapas, México
  59. Plateforme Migr’Afrique
  60. Privacy International
  61. Project ELPIDA e.V.
  62. Push Back Alarm Austria
  63. r42-SailAndRescue
  64. Red SOS Refugiados Europa
  65. ROOD, Socialistische Jongeren
  66. Sea-Watch
  67. Second Tree
  68. SeebrücCitizen D / Državljan D
  69. SETEM Catalunya
  70. Solidarité sans frontières
  71. Statewatch
  72. Stop Deportations Vienna
  73. Stop the War on Migrants
  74. Stop Wapenhandel
  75. The Channel Monitoring Project
  76. Transbalkan Solidarity Collective
  77. Transnational Institute
  78. Un Ponte Per
  79. Würzburg Solidarisch e.V.
  80. Yoga and Sport with Refugees

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