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The EU’s border agency Frontex is set to gain new powers to return irregular migrants from one non-EU country to another, further extending European migration policy beyond the bloc’s borders, according to several EU officials who spoke to Euronews on condition of anonymity.
The reforms, which the European Commission will unveil on Tuesday, will give Frontex greater operational powers outside EU territory, in a move likely to provoke a backlash from civil society organisations.
Frontex officials can currently assist national authorities in returning irregular migrants from EU countries to their countries of origin, as well as patrol the bloc’s external borders and coastlines.
Under the new rules, the Warsaw-based agency will also be able to support authorities in third countries, such as North African governments, in returning Central African citizens to their countries of origin before they even attempt to reach European shores.
“The more people you return before [they reach Europe], the less you have to return after,” an EU official told Euronews.
Frontex officials will also be allowed to take part in deportations from return hubs, which a recently approved law allows EU countries to establish in third countries. Five EU governments are currently negotiating the creation of the first hub, which is expected to become operational in 2027.
Migrants whose asylum applications or right to remain in the EU have been rejected and who are hosted in these hubs are ultimately expected to be returned to their countries of origin. Frontex’s involvement could prove instrumental in carrying out the final transfers.
“It's no longer only an agency supporting EU countries at their borders. [...] It's a deportation agency, increasingly operating far away from the actual border of the EU,” Josephine Solanki, a researcher from the Amsterdam-based think tank Transnational Institute, said in a press briefing ahead of the reform.
Several NGOs and civil society organisations are demanding that any expansion of Frontex's mandate be accompanied by stronger oversight and accountability mechanisms to safeguard migrants' fundamental rights. They argue that the agency has already been implicated in rights violations during its operations within Europe.
Any cooperation with a third country will, however, require a specific agreement with the country concerned, similar to the “status agreement” Frontex already has in place with several non-EU countries, including Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia.
These agreements allow Frontex officials to be deployed to carry out specific tasks, including joint operations and rapid border interventions on the territory of partner countries.
The EU is currently negotiating an agreement with Senegal. Meanwhile, a Frontex liaison officer for Senegal, whose expanded mandate also covers Mauritania and Gambia, was appointed in 2023 under informal “working arrangements.”
The reform will also introduce a rapid-response force to be deployed in the event of sudden, large-scale arrivals of irregular migrants, as well as an online surveillance unit tasked with monitoring social media to prevent large-scale movements.
The aim is to avoid situations such as the mass entry into Ceuta last July, when around 90,000 migrants forced their way across the border between Morocco and the Spanish exclave.
European Commission Vice-President for Security Henna Virkkunen and Home Affairs Commissioner Magnus Brunner are expected to present the reform after the Commission’s weekly College meeting on Tuesday.
Frontex is also set to receive €12 billion under the EU’s next seven-year budget, doubling its previous allocation.