EU to expand Frontex's powers: deportations from third countries and involvement in “return hubs”

New powers beyond the EU

The EU border agency Frontex will receive new powers to return migrants from one non-EU country to another, Euronews reported, citing several EU officials who spoke anonymously. The European Commission will present the reform on Tuesday; it will be unveiled by Commission Vice-President for Security Henna Virkkunen and Commissioner for Home Affairs Magnus Brunner after the weekly meeting of the College of Commissioners.

What is changing

Currently, agency staff can assist national authorities in returning migrants from EU countries to their home countries, as well as patrol the bloc's external borders and coastlines. Under the new rules, the Warsaw-based agency will be able to support third-country authorities, such as North African governments, in returning Central African citizens to their home countries even before they attempt to reach European shores. “The more people you return before [they reach Europe], the fewer you will have to return afterwards”, Euronews quotes an EU official as saying.

“Return hubs” and control infrastructure

Frontex will also gain the right to take part in deportations from “return hubs”, which a recently approved law allows EU countries to set up in third countries. Five governments are negotiating the creation of the first hub, which is expected to start operating in 2027. Migrants whose asylum applications or right to stay in the EU have been rejected and who are held in such hubs must ultimately be returned to their home countries; Frontex's involvement could prove key for the final transfers. The reform also provides for a rapid-response force in case of sudden mass arrivals and an online monitoring unit tracking social media to prevent mass movements — the aim is to avoid a repeat of last July's situation, when around 90,000 migrants stormed the border between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.

Legal conditions and criticism

Any cooperation with a third country will require a separate agreement, similar to the “status agreements” Frontex already has with a number of non-EU countries, including Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia; these allow the deployment of agency staff for joint operations and rapid border interventions on partners' territory. The EU is currently negotiating an agreement with Senegal; the Frontex liaison officer for Senegal, whose extended mandate also covers Mauritania and Gambia, was appointed in 2023 on the basis of informal “working arrangements”. A number of NGOs and civil society organisations are demanding that any expansion of the mandate be accompanied by stronger oversight and accountability mechanisms to protect migrants' fundamental rights, pointing out that the agency has already been implicated in rights violations during operations within Europe. “This is no longer just an agency supporting EU countries at their borders. [...] It is a deportation agency, increasingly operating far from the EU's actual borders”, said Josephine Solanki, a researcher at the Amsterdam-based think tank Transnational Institute, at a briefing ahead of the reform.

Funding and significance

Frontex will also receive €12 billion under the next seven-year EU budget — twice the previous allocation. The reform means that European migration policy will reach even further beyond the bloc's borders, which, according to Euronews citing officials, is likely to provoke a negative reaction from civil society organisations. For migrants and partner countries, the practical consequence will be the possibility of Frontex staff taking part in return procedures even before arrival in the EU and in expulsions from future “return hubs”, with specific operations depending on the conclusion of separate agreements with each country. Details of the reform will become known after its official presentation on Tuesday.