E.U. Border Agency Accused of Covering Up Migrant Pushback in Greece

Frontex is under fire for letting Greece illegally repel migrants as the agency expands to play a more central role at the bloc’s external borders. https://www.eudebates.tv/debates/eu-p... #islam #terror #terrorists #TerrorAttack #Austria #ViennaAttack #vienna #EU #europe #EuropeanUnion #european #FRONTEX MEPs to grill Frontex director on agency’s role in pushbacks of asylum-seekers The alleged involvement of Frontex staff in pushbacks of asylum-seekers by the Greek border guard will be the focus of a debate in the Civil Liberties Committee on Tuesday. MEPs are set to demand answers from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency’s Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri regarding the incidents revealed by media in which Greek coastguards with the alleged knowledge and even involvement of Frontex operatives stopped migrants trying to reach EU shores and sent them back to Turkish waters. They are likely to ask about the outcome of the internal inquiry carried out by the EU’s border agency and the board meeting called at the request of the European Commission. Last October, ahead of media revelations, the Frontex consultative forum which gathers, among others, representatives of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), UNHCR, the Council of Europe and IOM voiced concerns in its annual report. The forum pointed to the absence of an effective monitoring system to prevent and address potential fundamental rights violations in the Agency’s activities. On 6 July, in another Civil Liberties Committee meeting, Fabrice Leggeri assured MEPs that Frontex staff had not been involved in any pushbacks and described an incident with the Danish crew on board one of the agency’s vessels as “a misunderstanding”. https://www.eudebates.tv/ #eudebates Call to withdraw German police from Greek migrant 'pushbacks' A German politician wants federal police withdrawn from Aegean maritime patrols if EU border agency Frontex fails to halt migrant "pushbacks." Six forced returns since April have been attributed to the Greek coast guard. Frank Schwabe, the human rights spokesman for Germany's center-left Social Democrats (SPD), has said German federal police assigned to EU Frontex patrols should be withdrawn if implicated in so-called migrant "pushbacks." The demand follows revelations that since April, six migrant boats have been forced by Greek coast guard ships to return to Turkey, with allegations of risky maneuvers and outboard motors being damaged in an attempt to illegally block access to asylum. Read more: Greek migration minister: 'We are protecting our borders in line with international law' "Germans must on no account be involved in pushbacks, not even indirectly," Schwabe told newsmagazine Der Spiegel and ARD public television's investigative Mainz Report on Saturday. If Frontex, the EU's external border agency, did not stop the involvement of German federal police units in such pushbacks, then "the German contingent must be withdrawn," insisted Schwabe. Involvement in pushbacks at sea could even leave German police open to charges of complicity in offenses, international law expert Nora Markard told Der Spiegel. Blocked inflatable, didn't rescue Citing an internal Frontex letter to the European Commission on Saturday, the magazine said federal police on board the German patrol boat BP62 reached an overloaded inflatable boat inside Greek waters on the morning of August 10. Instead of immediately rescuing some 40 persons on board, the patrol boat blocked the occupants' route to the adjacent Greek island of Samos and waited half an hour until the Greek coast guard "took over" the incident. A photo taken two hours later showed Turkish coast guard ships rescuing the 40 occupants, suggesting their Greek counterparts had towed their inflatable back into Turkish waters. Der Spiegel said that Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri, in an internal report to Brussels, had written that the migrant boat turned back to Turkey upon the arrival of the Greek coast guard, which later documented the occurrence as an "obstructed entry." German police assigned to Frontex did not even file a "serious incident report," claimed the magazine. "Frontex must in the meantime assume that the Greek coast guard is carrying out illegal pushbacks," said Constantin Hruschka of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy based in Munich. "In such a case, Frontex must ensure that this does not happen and that the refugees are given access to an asylum procedure." Last week, the 47-nation human rights body the Council of Europe (CoE) slammed what it called "credible" allegations that Greece had carried out pushbacks across its border with Turkey, including forcing migrants on land to re-cross the Evros River.