Frontex requires a roadmap in order to fix significant operational shortcomings, European Court of Auditors Member Leo Brincat said on Monday. 

Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, has been growing in importance year on year. Frontex has three strategic objectives: to reduce vulnerability of the external borders based on comprehensive situational awareness; to guarantee safe, secure and well-functioning EU borders; and to plan and maintain European Border and Coast Guard capabilities. 

However, the agency received a damning report which was compiled by the European Court of Auditors, in which significant shortcomings were highlighted. 

One of the significant issues that Brincat underscored was that “the agency cannot continue to respond in an ad hoc fashion” as operational issues need to improve. 

The agency plans to employ 10,000 people by 2027, showing how robust in importance and stature this agency is seen to be in terms of European border safety. This is after it started with a headcount of 45 people in 2005 and in 2019 it had 749 employees. 

The budget allocated to this agency has also spiked up from €19 million in 2006 to €330 million in 2019, so this lack of operational coherence is worrying, Brincat said. 

The last external evaluation of the agency was published back in 2015, Brincat said, and the 2019 regulation was approved without any impact assessment. 

The audit focused on situation monitoring, risk analysis, vulnerability assessments and operational response. Returns support was excluded in the report since another audit is being undertaken and the report will be published in autumn this year. 

The lack of data, or that data was received too late from when events and activities which occurred concerning Frontex’s work was something which worried Brincat. 

He said that “although a functioning information exchange framework is in place to support the fight against illegal immigration, it did not function well enough to provide accurate, complete and up to date situational awareness of the EU’s external borders.” 

Asked by The Malta Independent why there was a lack of data or data which lacked details from their end, Brincat said that “the problem is that any organisation which decides to grow has to take time to digest the process. Although there were certain shortcomings from Frontex itself, the lack of real-time data from member states was also another shortcoming.” 

“On the other hand, we were not auditing member states, we were auditing Frontex’s support to member states. However, since Frontex was expanding since 2004, it should have anticipated these problems before they arose, because not only have they continued to rise, but they have no solution in sight,” Brincat said. He remarked that certain mechanisms should have already been in place, as although the European Commission has a say in this, it is up to Frontex to avoid this from happening by having the mechanisms in place. 

Furthermore, Frontex’s activities were not sufficiently developed to provide effective support to Member States/Schengen associated countries. 

The report highlighted three recommendations which the agency can follow. 

First, it needs to “improve the information exchange framework and the European situational picture.”

This means that the agency should, amongst other things, foster effective cooperation between itself and other relevant bodies “for the purpose of a complete European situational picture”, and “it must take place in the framework of a reporting mechanism defined in the implementing regulation on the European Border Surveillance system (EUROSUR) situational picture,” the report read. 

Secondly, the agency should seek to “update and implement the Common Integrated Risk Analysis Model (CIRAM) and secure access to other sources of information”. 

Finally, the Court of Auditors recommends that the agency should “develop the potential of vulnerability assessment”. On this point, the report read that “the Commission has frequently requested to regularly assess and discuss the evaluation reports of the operational activities, with a view to address weaknesses and enhance the efficiency and the impact of these activities at the Frontex’s Management Board meetings.” 

Brincat remarked that the agency should also work to “increase human resources, competencies, and profiling of activities.”

He also said that in the member states that the Court of Auditors visited, although the agency is carrying out border surveillance duties, there is no technical uniformity. “You cannot allow member states to apply their own technical systems because then you’ll have a whole hotchpotch situation,” he said. 

“We feel that Frontex, which is now larger than life, definitely needs to have a centralised system of oversight, but on the other hand, it cannot continue to respond in an ad hoc fashion when they have been projected to increase their resources in a very swift and exponential manner,” Brincat said. 

Finally, Brincat observed that the agency should look to complete its 2016 mandate before addressing the 2019 one, as more still needs to be done from their end in order to complete the former.