For two decades, the EU border agency Frontex has faced accusations of abuse, yet courts kept dismissing the claims. Now another reform is coming. Laura Salzano, a legal scholar, fears the agency’s “original sin” may survive it.
The EU created Frontex in 2004 to coordinate control of its external borders. Since then, the agency’s mandate and resources have grown fast. The rules holding it legally accountable have not kept pace.
In December 2025, the Court of Justice’s first rulings on the issue reopened the question of Frontex’s liability. The Commission will present its reform proposal in late October, and a five-point plan unveiled this week already points the way: more border guards, a bigger role in returns, and the monitoring of social media.
Laura Salzano, a researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights, has studied the agency for years. In this interview for EU Perspectives, she explains why its flaws run deeper than any single reform.
How did you first become interested in Frontex?
I studied law and graduated in 2016. Even as a teenager, and later during university, I had gained various experiences volunteering with migrants through the scout group I belonged to. However, I never imagined it would become my career.
There are certain moments in my life that marked a clear “before and after”. One of these was the first time I saw a ship arrive at the port of Messina in Sicily. It was a massive vessel, organised for transfers from Lampedusa to Messina, and it was packed with people. As a legal professional, I struggled at that moment to grasp exactly what was happening.
I was already working on my thesis in European Union law; later, I completed a master’s degree in EU law in Parma and moved to Brussels, where I worked at the European Parliament, covering migration issues for the former MEP Barbara Spinelli. I worked on several dossiers, including the 2018 Returns Directive, which was never voted on by Parliament. I was part of the initial negotiating team.
After that experience, I decided to move to Lampedusa, where I lived for a year. That was another turning point: my perspective on migration changed completely there, and I began working on my research project regarding Frontex. I couldn’t wrap my head around how certain things were possible and why there was no institutional response. As a legal professional, and earlier in my life, I had placed great faith in institutions. So, the decision also stemmed from a broader disillusionment with how the institutional system functions.
Was there a specific incident that steered your research towards Frontex?
During the COVID-era Easter, there was a devastating shipwreck involving hundreds of people who had called for help but received no rescue. The official number of victims was around a hundred, though at the time it was said to be much higher. We will never know for sure because the vessel was never found. The event received little coverage because of the COVID emergency. Frontex had been alerted.
I was working at the Migration Observatory, and after that incident, I drafted my research proposal. I went to Barcelona to study the agency’s liability for fundamental rights violations, focusing particularly on maritime borders and Article 7 of the regulation. Later, I spent a year working with the Consultative Forum at the Council of Europe, a body established by the Frontex regulation that brings together human rights experts. I also conducted part of my research in Nijmegen and Leuven, and at a European fundamental rights centre.
I developed a research project on this topic in collaboration with various academics and institutions, aided by Professor Violeta Moreno-Lax. I pursued my postdoctoral research last year, and today I focus more broadly on outsourcing and outsourcing agreements.
Why did the EU create Frontex, and what was wrong with it from the start?
Frontex was founded in 2004 and became operational in 2005. It began as an agency very different from the one we know today. However, what I would call its “original sin” has persisted across successive regulations, even as the agency’s mandate has progressively expanded.
The initial goal was to create an agency that would coordinate the authorities responsible for border control. The Schengen system entails rigorous controls at external borders deemed necessary to maintain an area of freedom, security, and justice without internal border checks. Primary responsibility remained with the member states, but the idea was to create a European body to coordinate them. Initially, Frontex primarily provided support to member states. Subsequently, the agency and the needs of the member states evolved through a series of regulations.
Since 2016, when Frontex assumed its current role as the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, the problems have become more apparent. The agency no longer limits itself to supporting member states but has taken on a much more decisive role. The problem is that the allocation of responsibility is unclear. Responsibilities were not assigned ex ante.
From a legal standpoint, it can be held liable for a violation if it fell within the area of competence; otherwise, it cannot be held responsible for something that was the duty of others. This distribution of competencies is not sufficiently clear in the regulation. The result is a highly complex system where, whenever an incident occurs, it is difficult to determine who is responsible.
Member states are not liable for the entirety of the damage caused, and Frontex, in turn, is not necessarily held accountable. A system has thus emerged lacking both a clear attribution of conduct and a clear establishment of liability. Furthermore, the legal mechanisms for recourse to the Court of Justice were devised before the agency had fully evolved.
We therefore have an agency that has been operational for 20 years, facing numerous allegations of fundamental rights violations; yet, the first rulings questioning whether Frontex could be held liable date back only to December 2025, exactly 20 years after it began operations. Added to this is another problem: borders are often geographically remote locations, making it difficult to gather evidence about what occurs there.
What does migration reveal about the rule of law in the EU?
The management of migration in Europe serves as a barometer for the crisis of the rule of law. It is not just migrants who are no longer safe; activists and NGOs were the first to be targeted, and now we are beginning to see problems for journalists as well. This is unacceptable.
In 2025, the first rulings were handed down that reopened the question of Frontex’s liability. On appeal, the Court of Justice completely set aside one judgment due to errors in legal analysis and partially set aside another. Normally, we wouldn’t view this as a success, but we had become accustomed to cases concerning Frontex and fundamental rights being dismissed as inadmissible before even reaching the merits.
European researchers have hailed this as a very significant outcome. Now, the cases return to the first-instance court. The outcome could go either way; these rulings do not tell us what the final result will be.
Then there is Fabrice Leggeri (PfE/FRA), who ran Frontex until 2022 and now sits on the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE). How should we read that?
It should not be lawful for someone who was subject to parliamentary oversight to subsequently enter Parliament and help oversee the very agency they once led. The regulations ought to establish an incompatibility between the role of heading an executive agency, or any body representing the European executive, and serving as an MEP. Yet, neither the Commission nor the Parliament seems to view this as a problem.
It should not be lawful for someone who was subject to parliamentary oversight to subsequently enter Parliament and help oversee the very agency they once led. — Laura Salzano, researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights
Leggeri is the LIBE coordinator for the Patriots group, so he is no ordinary MEP. Consider the Frontex Scrutiny Working Group established during his tenure: at the start of the new term, that group was dissolved and replaced by the Schengen Working Group. A situation like this should not be permitted to occur.
What do we actually know about the coming reform, and what remains open?
We have very little information about the reform. We know there will be adjustments to data protection rules, particularly concerning what Frontex is permitted to do regarding data exchange and its relationship with Europol. Many of these activities are already being carried out but are not yet fully covered by the regulation. With executive agencies, we are therefore seeing a form of ex post legislative adjustment to practices that are already underway.
We also know that member states would like to modify the way Frontex operates outside the European Union. Currently, there are four legal bases allowing the agency to work outside the EU. The only one subject to a certain level of oversight is the Status Agreement, an international agreement in the full sense of the term: it requires a vote by Parliament, thereby enabling ex ante democratic oversight and potential ex post scrutiny by the Court.
The other legal bases are far less structured. We know that member states would like to avoid making Status Agreements a requirement in every instance where Frontex is deployed with executive powers.
This brings us to return hubs, centres outside the EU for people ordered to leave. What are the risks if Frontex helps run them?
It is a very delicate issue. Frontex should not be allowed to manage return hubs because, when operating abroad, it enjoys immunity, and the accountability framework is even vaguer and less clear.
Frontex should not be permitted to operate abroad without a clear accountability framework and adequate international agreements. Most agreements are informal, such as “working arrangements”, which, from a legal standpoint, differ significantly from Status Agreements and cannot be challenged in the same way. No public entity, not just Frontex, should be able to operate in such sensitive environments, exercising executive powers that profoundly impact individuals’ legal and private spheres, without clear rules and an equally clear accountability framework.
What worries you most about the future of Frontex?
The problem with Frontex goes far beyond the issue of migration. If the European Union wishes to remain a credible actor in the eyes of its citizens, it cannot tolerate the existence of bodies that operate above the law and lack even a minimum level of transparency.
We know that member states have an interest in strengthening the agency, as doing so allows them to shift responsibility away from themselves. — Laura Salzano, researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights
This issue must be resolved as soon as possible, as it is incompatible with the rule of law. We have a window of opportunity here to fix the problem. I fear, however, that this chance, too, might be missed. We shall see how the legislative process unfolds. We know that member states have an interest in strengthening the agency, as doing so allows them to shift responsibility away from themselves.
