Frontex, the EU border agency are hoping to have their guards in Greece armed by the summer.
This would make them some of the first armed EU officials, deployed to other Member States.
Frontex which is based in Warsaw, Poland considers itself a “law-enforcement force” and has been attempting to get its legal standing relating to carrying weapons, clarified for some time. It has been approved for the carrying of weapons in Poland, but so far has not been granted permission to do so elsewhere.
Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri told MEPs this week that they have reached a “bridging agreement” with Athens that would allow Frontex guards to carry weapons in Greece.
“We are a fully-fledged EU agency…but we are also more a fully-fledged European law enforcement force,” he said.
He confirmed that background checks are ongoing for those guards that will be carrying weapons.
“We are in the process of vetting the category one staff so that we can deploy them with use of force,” he said.
Leggeri said he is hoping to sign more agreements that will allow the deployment of armed staff in other countries. Frontex are also active in the Canary Islands, Cyprus, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, Albania, and Montenegro.
They have some 500 category 1 staff and are seeking to hire a further 700 by the end of 2021.
Frontex have recently been accused of illegally deporting refugees and migrants from the Greek-Albanian border.
Frontex has been accused of illegally deporting refugees and migrants in Greece.
According to an investigation conducted by Deutsche Welle, migrants in Greece that are trying to reach Western Europe accused the EU’s border guards of “pushback”.
Several individuals spoke to the media and said they had experienced such behavior. One man said he walked from Ioannina to the Albanian border, not encountering any Greek police. He claimed that Frontex staff stopped in Albania and handed him over to the authorities in Kakavia. He then asked the Albanian authorities for asylum but was told they couldn’t apply due to COVID and were sent back to Greece without the Greek authorities being notified. The man in question attempted once again and made it to Tirana before heading through Kosovo to Serbia.
Refugee aid organizations have claimed that pushback happens at the border between North Macedonia and Albania as well. They claim it happens daily.
A Frontex spokesperson told DW that they hadn’t found any credible evidence to support the allegations.
In October, Exit interviewed an individual involved in transporting migrants from Greece to Tirana and then onwards to an EU Member State. They told Exit that those that are caught in Albania are interviewed by the police, then taken back and dropped over the border with Greece. They added that those that are pushed back, try again and are often back in Albania 24 hours later.
An investigation was then launched by the European Anti-Fraud Office into allegations of sexual harassment, maltreatment and illegal deportation of immigrants. There were also claims of illegal operations intended to keep migrants from reaching EU shores.
Their name was also mentioned in a report by Privacy International that accused the EU of “equipping and training authorities, influencing laws, and developing mass-scale biometric databases in non-member countries” and providing “digital tools of surveillance” that could be used to “crush political and civil freedoms and undermine democracy” unless urgent reforms are made.
Frontex was found to have given training in Albania which taught participants how to secure evidence for intelligence purposes including from mobile phones, how to acquire fingerprints from people including children and those with disabilities, and some basic self-defense techniques.
FRONTEX also organised training in Croatia in 2019 where Albanian authorities were present. They were instructed on how to use technical equipment for land border surveillance, radio communication, and techniques for searching people and vehicles.
