Fabrice Leggeri, director of the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency, recently defended the continued pursuit of five-figure legal fees from two transparency activists, despite heavy criticism from MEPs.
Frontex, the EU’s border and coast guard agency, has launched a case against independent activists Luisa Izuzquiza and Arne Semsrott, who last year lost a court case against the agency seeking greater transparency over its border control operations.
Frontex has issued 21 calls for tender with an estimated value of over €210 million since the entry into force of its new Regulation in December 2019.
The approval of the new Frontex Regulation in November 2019 implied an increase of competences, budget and capabilities for the EU's border agency, which is now equipping itself with increased means to monitor events and developments at the borders and beyond, as well as renewing its IT systems to improve the management of the reams of data to which it will have access.
On 4 January 2020 the Management Board of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) adopted a decision on the profiles of the staff required for the new “standing corps”, which is ultimately supposed to be staffed by 10,000 officials. The decision ushers in a new wave of recruitment for the agency. Applicants will be put through six months of training before deployment, after rigorous medical testing.
The European Commission has published its proposals for the EU home affairs budgets for the period 2021-2027, with the aim of increasing the internal security budget by €1.3 billion to €4.8 billion, and tripling the funding for border security and migration to €34.9 billion.
22 EU Member States' plans for internal security and migration were approved by the European Commission yesterday, opening the door to billions of euros in funding from the EU's current seven year budget, which runs from 2014 until 2020. The new budgets follow the EU's previous internal security and migration budgets, which ran from 2007 until 2013 and paid for transnational databases and police operations, surveillance equipment, and detention centres, amongst other things.
The 2015 budget of EU border agency Frontex has been increased by 17.5%, from €97 million to €114 million, with the largest share of the extra funding going towards Joint Operations at Sea Borders.
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