Fabrice Leggeri, who has been criticized by the European Parliament for failing to protect the human rights of asylum seekers in the EU, announced his resignation shortly before Frontex’s board decided whether to take disciplinary action against him. In a statement Friday, Frontex confirmed that Legger and two other staff members had been investigated by the EU anti-fraud agency Olaf, without elaborating on further allegations. Legeri had the opportunity to comment on the Olaf report at a special board meeting on Thursday, where he announced his resignation, Frontex reported. “The board noted its intentions and concluded that the employment has therefore ended,” the statement said. In a copy of his resignation letter seen by the Guardian, Legery said: “I am returning my mandate to the board as it appears that the Frontex mandate in which I was elected and renewed in June 2019 has changed tacitly but substantially. ” The letter came on the same day that an international consortium of journalists, including the Guardian, revealed that the Frontex database had been shown to be involved in illegal repulsions, forcing asylum seekers trying to enter Greece back to Turkey. But it was Olaf’s inquiry that prompted his resignation. The anti-fraud service has called for disciplinary action against Leggeri and two other Frontex executives, two EU sources told the Guardian. One source said Legger was accused of covering up human rights abuses. Separately, German Social Democrat MEP Birgit Sippel, who follows Frontex, could not confirm whether Leggeri was taking disciplinary action, but said there was a misuse of the project’s funds at Frontex. An Olaf spokesman confirmed that the Frontex investigation was closed on February 15, but declined to comment further, citing confidentiality rules to protect those involved and “possible follow-up to administrative and judicial proceedings.” Legeri, a French national who has held senior positions in his country’s interior and defense ministries, has led Frontex since 2015, a period that went from being a dark EU agency to a central part of EU border control policy. Following the immigration crisis of 2015, EU leaders agreed to give the Warsaw-based organization more power, staff and money. By 2027, Frontex will have 10,000 border guards and coastguards, and its budget has already increased more than 19 times since its inception in 2006. As executive director of Frontex, Legeri has come under fire, including from a special committee in the European Parliament last year, which accused the agency of failing to protect the human rights of asylum seekers. The cross-party committee said Frontex had only conducted a superficial investigation into alleged illegal repulsions at the EU border. . MEPs found that he had appointed 63 people to his private office, more than double the number of people working in the cabinet of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Subscribe to the First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7 p.m. BST A spokesman for the European Commission said Frontex had a “crucial role to play in helping Member States protect the EU’s common external borders and at the same time protect fundamental rights in this way”, the Commission spokesman added. “And to achieve this, Frontex must have a stable and well-functioning service.” German MEP Birgit Schippel, speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group on Home Affairs, said Legger’s resignation was long overdue. He said: “For years, Legger has mismanaged the EU’s border and coastguard body, seriously damaging his reputation and misleading parliament along the way. “The elements of the need for new leadership have grown since then, and we will look carefully at the succession.” The MEP told the Guardian that she believed she had resigned because of the Olaf report. “It seems that the behavior of the people working at Frontex was unacceptable,” he said. The use of project funding was not always correct. “So there were internal things that were not going well and it seems that this in the end made Leggeri resign.” Tineke Strik, a Dutch MEP in the Greens who led the European Parliament’s 2021 investigation into Frontex, said Leggeri had lost all credibility. “It simply came to our notice then [resignation] “It happened, but it was quite well protected by the Member States,” he said. The volume of allegations against him and his responses – which “were simply not good enough” – had made his position unfounded, he added: “Because all these allegations and the Olaf report of”. The MEP rejected Legger’s claim that the description of his position had been changed “silently”, saying his letter revealed “that he never saw the protection of human rights as an important part of the mandate”.
