00:00Welcome to the Europe conversation where this week my guest is executive director of Frontex
00:13Hans Leitens. He says he wants to change the culture of the organization where saving lives
00:18at sea is a key priority. He also says if he had his way no migrants would be returned to Libya
00:25where they often face serious human rights abuses. Hans Leitens, executive director of Frontex.
00:32Thank you very much for joining us on the Europe conversation. You're welcome. So Frontex is 20
00:37years coming up to this year. It was obviously created to protect the border of the European
00:42Union but it's growing. I mean politically speaking Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the
00:46commission would like to increase the staff to around 30,000 from where we are now which is in
00:52around 3,000 staff. It started actually even less ambitious than that. It started with being more
00:58of an information hub, a coordination mechanism and it was only in 2019 when our mandate became
01:05executive. Right now we are still in the build-up so in 27 we should have 10,000 to be deployed in
01:102028. One of the things that does obviously come into your mind when you think of Frontex's pushbacks
01:16where we've seen certain coast guards in particular Greece has been accused of this many times. Obviously
01:21Greece is a country that has been very much heavily on the front line when it comes to migration for
01:25at least the past decade. But that people are being pushed back away from the coastline, deep into
01:32the sea on unseaworthy vessels where often they die. I mean we had the case of the Adriana where 600
01:39people died and you see all those images of little children spread around the coastline dead.
01:45Can you tell us about that because Frontex does come under a lot of criticism for it not taking enough of its
01:51responsibility there? Well to start with I think every single casualty hurts. Hurts of course the
01:56families but also hurts us because when we took up our job we promised to serve and protect. So we're
02:02not sort of the enemy, they're not our opponents. Migration is a fact of life and we have to deal
02:07with it, we have to manage it. So that's to start with. Then secondly I think it's important that
02:12we support the member states. Indeed we see and we also observe ourselves that sometimes there are
02:20incidents. They're reported by us, they're investigated by the Fundamental Rights Office in most cases but
02:27also the follow-up of these incidents are with the member states. I have to work with the sort of the
02:33fact that there is a rule of law that's functioning because it's the commission who needs to make sure
02:37that every member state has a rule of law that functions. Emily O'Reilly, the former EU
02:41Ombudsman was very critical of Frontex or at least asked the question, is it responsible for saving
02:48lives at sea? Because actually you're taking the European Union, the commission, into this if you
02:52advocate your responsibility and the Adriana was one case in point. This happens all the time.
02:56Difficult thing is, so to start with we are not a search and rescue agency as such. What we do is in the course of our
03:04mandate, meaning protecting borders, if we run into something that might be a case where a ship is in distress,
03:11for example, we play our role in alarming the responsive and responsible member state or third
03:18country, depending on where it happens. That's what we did in the other case. Actually I was myself in a
03:23monitoring room when we first spotted the ship. So I saw it myself the day before it went down, which is a
03:30terrible incident by the way, let me be absolutely clear about that. What we can do,
03:34then, is when we had a plane, we can inform, in this case, the Greek authorities about what we see.
03:40We cannot coordinate.
03:41Okay, well 600 people died and it was pretty obvious that they were probably going to come
03:46into distress. I mean obviously you did your duty and you complied, but is there something more you
03:50could have done to ensure that those lives were not ended the way they were?
03:55I can tell you what I would like to have done knowing what I know right now, but the question is,
04:00what did we know back then? And back then we had one drone flying, one plane flying,
04:05and we were instructed to go to another incident south of Crete. That was a real incident. So we had to
04:11move on because the overview of that incident was with the Greek authorities. So then we move on to
04:17a next incident where 80 people on board of also a ship in distress. So, okay, if I would have known
04:24before what would have happened, then I would have, I mean we proposed to the Greek authorities to send
04:31another plane twice. We have been already clear about that from the day after the incident that we
04:36proposed this to the Greek and both times it was ignored by the Greek authorities. That's their decisions then.
04:41Because I think this is a very important point. And I know that your own fundamental rights officer,
04:45Jonas Grimheden, has complained about the Greek authorities. There are many investigations
04:51regarding Greece and this illegal pushbacks where migrants are pushed away and often obviously suffer.
04:59I'm happy to focus on Greece, but let's first start with cooperating with 27 member states and a number of
05:04first countries. So the volume of things we do is much bigger than only in Greece. I would like in Greece to
05:11happen what I would like to happen every country with who you cooperate, that they comply with the
05:15rules and that if there is an incident and that can happen, that it is duly investigated, that it has
05:22consequences. There's also the investigation into the Syrian family of four who went to Greece, applied
05:27for asylum legally. Before their asylum process had been completed, they were forcibly put onto a plane.
05:32They ended up in Iraq. Of course, they couldn't go back to Syria. One of their complaints is that the
05:37Frontex guards or the guards there separated the parents from their children. They're trying to
05:41make Frontex accountable when it comes to human rights. The question actually is not so much about
05:46what we did, but about our responsibility. And that is, the question is, okay, should we rely
05:53on the decision as it is presented to us by, in this case, the Greek authorities, in case we have,
05:59let's say, a part of a chain of activities, in this case, a return activity. And our position has been
06:08in the past that we cannot, because it's a national responsibility to make a decision and also to make
06:14sure that it's done in a proper way. What we do right now is we check, let's say, the step before us,
06:22and that's as far we can go. But if the judge would decide that we are fully responsible for the whole
06:28chain of events, that would make our life very difficult. But again, that's a fact of life then,
06:32and then we have to adjust our way of working to that. In the past, Frontex has said that NGOs
06:38saving people at sea are a pull factor from migration. Do you believe that that is the case?
06:42Well, you never heard me say that. Actually, I sit in the Italian Senate the opposite. I have no proof.
06:50Actually, there is scientific proof that it's not the case. So there have been academia looking at the
06:56topic and they proved with duly investigative studies that there's no proof that it is. And
07:05I have no proof of that either. So for me, NGOs are part of the ecosystem. I'm in touch with them. We
07:12speak. We try to understand each other's positions. We try to make sure that we don't
07:18sort of block each other's, because we all see the need to save lives at sea, for example.
07:23But you see Frontex as a role in saving lives at sea. That's what you also believe.
07:27Yeah, sure. We are, yeah.
07:28Because we know that Frontex obviously uses drones and planes to spot ships
07:33coming in, and often they're brought back to places like Libya, where people, and we've seen the
07:39long-standing reporting of this, people often face torture, arbitrary arrest. Can Frontex stand over
07:45that when they know that the repercussions for those people is so grave?
07:48Let me be very clear. I wish there would be no one returned to Libya, because I fully agree with
07:53what you just stated. That we have a professional dilemma, actually. Let me just give you an example.
08:00First of all, the Mediterranean is divided in search and rescue zones. And it's not our invention,
08:06it's UN law who sort of says, okay, who's responsible where. We do patrolling, what we call pre-frontier,
08:14that means that we fly over international waters, but it includes the search and rescue zones of,
08:19indeed, North African countries like Libya. When we spot a ship in distress, there's no doubt in my mind
08:27that the first responsibility we have is to save lives. And if it's really in distress,
08:33we relay a medical on behalf of the ship. And if it's in Libyan territory, it's the Libyans who have
08:38to take the responsibility. And they do. And I've been asked, okay, but why don't you just skip the
08:43Libyans and only inform the NGOs? But that would mean that I would play with human lives. Because if
08:49the NGOs are not available, then there's no coordination, then people might drown. And I
08:54cannot take that responsibility. So as long, as much as I do not like people to be returned to Libya,
08:58if I have to choose, again, I'd rather save lives than not save lives.
09:03Actually, there has been a 38% drop in crossings to the EU, which is actually comparable to
09:10the time during COVID when nobody was actually moving. What do you say is the reason for this?
09:16In this specific case, I think it has to do, we know actually, because we have proof of this,
09:20there were two ways how people moved from Tunisia to Lampedusa, for example. First way was use the
09:27ships like the Ariana, so bigger Egyptian, often fishing vessels, 500-600 people on board.
09:35And the other way was using smaller boats. And these were makeshift metal boats.
09:41They would construct them in 24 hours, they cost about $1,000, and they could take 30 people on board.
09:47The Tunisians stepped up their enforcement there, so they stopped this modus operandi.
09:53And that actually explains right now the decrease.
09:56Because you mentioned Tunisia and Egypt, and obviously we talked about Libya before that,
10:00and the EU has done important deals with those two countries to stem the wave of migration.
10:06But would you be concerned about the human rights in those countries?
10:08I always have my concerns, and I should take them on board, because everything we do has to be assured
10:14by at the same time compliance with fundamental rights and also data protection. At the same time,
10:19UNHCR is doing work in Libya right now. We are not. IOM is supporting the Libyan Coast Guard.
10:25So let's not do as if we are sort of a different species. We have to cooperate.
10:31Just before I let you go, I want to ask you, are you concerned about the rightward
10:34hard-line shift amongst member states when it comes to migration?
10:39Sometimes it's perhaps tempting to sort of assume that you can be effective in border guarding
10:44without complying with fundamental rights. I think this is sort of an illusion. Actually,
10:50it's a false contradiction. I think fundamental rights is actually the basis of how we should do it,
10:55because we are Europe. We agreed to uphold fundamental rights. We put them actually in our charter.
11:01Every country who joined the union signed by the cross to do this.
11:05And do you think that you'll be able to make sure that that is pervasive within the organization of
11:11Frontex, given, as you mentioned, the Frontex before you joined seem to have, let's say,
11:17not as much regard for that? You have to have transparency. And it's not just about the instance.
11:23It's about recruitment. It's about being a fair organization, being a diverse organization,
11:28both in gender, but also in nationalities. So I think it means a lot. And it's actually an
11:34attribute of culture. And as you know, culture is very difficult to change. But I think we're making
11:39steps right now. I think it will take for sure the rest of my mandates, which is another three years,
11:44to really change it. And it's not only depending on me. I think it's depending on all of the leadership of
11:48Frontex. Hans Leitens, Executive Director of Frontex. Thank you very much for joining us under your conversation.
11:54You're welcome.
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