Crisis-driven EU policy in recent years fits within a securitisation narrative, in which the claim of public security threat outweighs fundamental rights and their accountability safeguards. Under this policy development, Frontex, the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency, has experienced an impressive expansion in its powers and competences, without the equivalent enhancement of accountability safeguards. This article focuses in particular on the issue of transparency as a fundamental right and an element of social and political accountability. Specifically, it examines how lack of transparency in complex multi-actor structures, such as Frontex joint operations, can result in gaps in accountability and impact the enforcement of basic fundamental rights of EU citizens and migrants.Using a conceptual perspective of accountability and securitisation, and highlighting specific gaps in transparency in the context of Frontex joint operations, this article aims to show how the lack of transparency has been determined by the situation of emergency and has continued to remain unaddressed due to a constant state of institutional emergency, feeding back into the perpetuation of the securitisation narrative.
The effective return of irregularly staying migrants is identified as an overriding objective in the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, while return operations are the fastest-growing activity of Frontex. Since the 2019 amendment of its Regulation, the agency has received a significant augmentation of its mandate and capacity in pre-return and return-related activities. This way, Frontex takes a centre-stage role in the Commission’s plan to intensify returns. This article fills the relevant gap in existing literature, updating our knowledge on the latest legislative developments in EU return operations and answering questions related to their human rights implications at a time when the scrutiny over Frontex is at its peak. The article discusses the human rights risks of these operations and the effectiveness of the available safeguards. This article is the product mainly of legal doctrinal research, i.e. the analysis of the relevant EU law and legal literature, along with civil society and institutional reports and other empirical documentation. At the same time, it also looks at quantitative data on the agency’s return activities from 2004 until 2019.
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