The departure of the French boss of the European border guards agency comes following an investigation by the EU antifraude wrestling office, including illegal alleged cases of migrant repression.
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The director general of Frontex, the French Fabrice Leggeri, presented his resignation before the board of directors of the European border guards agency, in Warsaw. This was accepted on Friday April 29. The European Commission specified in a press release that the assistant director, the Latvone Aija Kalnaja would assume the interim until the appointment of a successor. “Frontex must be a robust and efficient agency. The commission will continue to [] fully support it in this mission,” said the press release.
Fabrice Leggeri had taken the head of the agency in January 2015 and his mandate had been renewed in 2019. This 54-year-old enarque, a native of Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin), made a large part of his career within of the Ministry of the Interior, especially in sub-prefect positions. He also worked at the Ministry of Defense and was seconded to the European Commission in Brussels.
Frontex accused of illegal migrants
“I return my mandate,” wrote Fabrice Leggeri in a succinct mail addressed to the Board of Directors of Frontex, Thursday, April 28, and made public by the collaborative media Lighthouse Reports. Meeting extraordinary, this board of directors had to focus in particular on a non -public report from the European Antifraude Wrestling Office (OLAF), the fruit of a long closed investigation in February; The Olaf would have recommended the opening of a disciplinary procedure against Mr. Leggeri, a recommendation that the board of directors did not follow.
Olaf was interested in acts of “harassment”, “poor conduct” and “repressions of migrants” at the external borders of the European Union (EU), according to MEPs of the Commission de control Budgetary of the Parliament, which had suspended the clearance of the accounts of Frontex in view of the “gravity” of the conclusions of the office, which had been presented to them. “Nothing has been done concerning the reports of transgressions of fundamental rights in Greece and the transactions for the referral of migrants by Hungary continued in 2020, despite a judgment of the EU Court of Justice deeming them incompatible with European law “, wrote elected officials in a press release of March 31.
Already, in September 2021, the deputies had asked for the freezing of part of the 2022 budget of Frontex, as long as the agency did not proceed to the recruitment of twenty officers with fundamental rights, to set up a Mechanism of reporting serious incidents at the external borders of the EU and the creation of an operational system for monitoring fundamental rights.
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