10 March 2024
Frontex, the EU border and coast guard, is the bloc’s best funded agency costing upwards of a billion euros a year. There are plans for a standing corps of 10,000 uniformed personnel this decade. But something is badly amiss. Migrants keep drowning in large numbers under Frontex’s watch. That includes what is thought to be the worst disaster of its kind when the fishing vessel Adriana capsized in June last year in Greek waters with some 750 people aboard. An estimated 600 people perished in that catastrophe. In response, the European Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, looked under the hood at Frontex and at its relations with national coast guards. She found an institution that calls itself a border and coast guard but that lacks the power to carry out some of the basic duties that come with such an important job. Frontex must check with national authorities like the Hellenic Coast Guard before rescues and even before conducting additional surveillance. As for issuing emergency Mayday alerts — something Frontex can do — the agency still has no set protocol. You might say that weaker-than-advertised EU institutions are a reality of a European project where member states are reluctant to cede sovereignty. But in the case of Frontex the results are so lethal and inhumane that EU claims to uphold fundamental rights are undermined on a daily basis. In this episode Emily describes her inquiry into the Adriana and lays out her recommendations for fixing some of what ails Frontex. Emily also discusses the move by France to enshrine abortion rights in the constitution. She does so from the perspective of a former journalist who wrote about reproductive rights in Ireland in the 1980s and 90s, including in her book Masterminds of the Right.
