Input to the European Comission Public Consultation on the Frontex Regulation Recast (November 2025)

The BVMN is submitting this position paper to contribute to the European Commission’s Public Consultation on its initiative to strengthen EU rules on the European Border and Coast Guard, specifically Frontex.

The Network’s findings and evidence indicate that systematic violations of fundamental rights of people on the move occur in Frontex (hereafter the Agency) operational areas. These patterns constitute serious violations of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and raise concerns of acquiescence or at minimum informed tolerance of practices incompatible with the obligations arising from the EU Treaties. The Commission’s initiative aims to address gaps in the implementation of Regulation (EU) 2019/1896  and to prepare the Agency for an expanded role as the EU’s operational arm in border management and returns. We express serious concern in this direction as the initiative fails to engage with years of evidence showing that Frontex operates in environments marked by fundamental-rights violations, ill-treatment and deaths at borders. Instead of prioritising accountability, oversight, and compliance, the Commission’s proposal focuses on expanding powers, resources, and operational reach.

In response to the Commission’s objective to ‘enhance cooperation on return operations’, this paper provides evidence from AVR procedures in Bulgarian detention facilities challenging the principle of the‘voluntariness’ of such return decisions and the Agency’s role in them. We further express concern on the Agency’s growing operational engagement in third countries, including support to return procedures between said countries.

We express deep concern over the objective to further ‘improve situational awareness’ and increase the acquisition and deployment of border-surveillance equipment. Surveillance technologies deployed through Frontex risk, in practice, to enable apprehension, tracking, and subsequent violent pushbacks.

Finally, the level of responsibility of Frontex in fundamental rights violations should call into question the very existence of the Agency as part of the EU’s migration policy framework. Evidence from the Greek context, that is provided here as a case study, supports this assessment. At the very minimum, any regulatory change in Frontex’s mandate must be conditional on robust, enforceable, and independent accountability mechanisms. Absent such safeguards, the continuation and expansion of the Agency’s activities entrenches a system that normalises violations against people on the move.