(ANSA-AFP) - BRUSSELS, FEB 6 - Pressure is growing on the
head of the EU's border patrol agency after new accusations of
abuses that were deemed "very worrying" by Brussels. The damning
reports against Fabrice Leggeri come at a time when the Frontex
agency is taking on a greater frontline role in patrolling the
EU's borders. Migration is a hot-button issue across the EU and
a rallying cry for far-right parties that are a rising force in
some countries at the ballot box. Leggeri is in charge of making
sure his beefed-up agency can tighten control of Europe's vast
frontiers and he has been given an ever-increasing budget to do
so. But the Frenchman has been the subject of succeeding rounds
of accusations both for the methods used to stop migrants as
well irregularities in Frontex spending. The agency is under
investigation by OLAF, the EU's independent corruption watchdog,
over allegations of illegal pushbacks of migrants arriving in
Greek waters from Turkey. MEPs and activists have called for
Leggeri to resign over the operations, but he has refused to do
so, insisting his agency is key to the fight against human
trafficking. "Investigations are under way and it is normal that
we have to report to the political authority. We are becoming a
police force," Leggeri told France's Europe 1 radio. More
worryingly for Leggeri personally are accusations of spending
irregularities and bad treatment of staff. Documents revealed by
ZDF, Le Monde and the Corporate Europe Observatory allegedly
show that Frontex has been courted by dozens of defence and tech
lobbyists in violation of EU transparency rules. This follows
other media reports that said that the raids on Frontex
headquarters by OLAF investigators also turned up accusations of
fraud and harassment of staff members. According to these
reports by French daily Liberation and Germany's Der Spiegel,
the investigators are looking into, among other things, a
contract with a Polish IT service provider, which is said to be
tainted by irregularities. The European commissioner for home
affairs, Ylva Johansson, said on Friday that the latest reports
were "very concerning" for an agency that is "going to be, by
far, the biggest EU Agency with a lot of power." "We need a
strong, solid and well-functioning Frontex agency," she told
AFP. With a mandate reinforced in 2019, Frontex is to have
10,000 agents by 2027 who will be directly employed by the
agency, and no longer seconded to the force by the member
states. The Frontex management board -- composed of
representatives from member states and the European Commission
-- has set up a working group to investigate the case. In an
unprecedented move, the agency suspended its operations in
Hungary at the end of January, following a European court ruling
condemning the country's asylum policy. (ANSA-AFP).
© Copyright ANSA - All rights reserved