There are moments when the delivery person is delayed. The package does not arrive. Your order is close to cooling down and the plan devised for dinner ends up frustrated. By the time it arrives at your door, there is no longer any hunger. After that, the claim takes even longer to process. Time passes, you end up forgetting, and you repeat the choreography, opening the door for it to happen again. Or not. Brussels claims to have learned the lesson and has reinforced Frontex's mandate to act urgently in crisis situations.
The European Commission has replicated the model of those users who decide to subscribe to the premium version of their services to receive packages in "24 hours." The community executive has created a rapid reaction force that will be part of Frontex's permanent body to respond to emergencies, crisis situations, or attempts to instrumentalize migration at the external borders of the European Union.
The response will consist of agents from this body in a state of constant alert, trained and equipped to deploy within a maximum period of 24 hours. However, its deployment will be decided by the executive director of Frontex after receiving the request from the affected member state, with an initial duration of up to one month. If the crisis situation that prompted the call extends, a joint operation or a conventional rapid intervention may be activated.
Frontex, the operational arm of the EU
In essence, what the cabinet of the Commissioner for Home Affairs and Migration, Magnus Brunner, seeks with this proposal is to turn Frontex into the central operational arm of the EU for border protection and returns. Along with the new rapid reaction force, an online monitoring and response center will be created to monitor public social networks against possible threats. In addition, there is an obligation to report serious incidents through the EUROSUR network in less than 24 hours. "We want Frontex to be there in hours, not weeks!" the commissioner has argued.
This reform practically redefines the agency's actions outside the territory of the Union. It leaves behind mere technical advice to give way to direct intervention. Just as delivery companies tend to expand their scope of action, incorporating shipments to third countries, Brussels wants to extend Frontex's operational capabilities beyond its borders.
Brunner defends that "protecting the external borders is a fundamental task for any State." "It is an indispensable condition to safeguard our freedoms and our security and, therefore, to keep EU citizens safe," he justified this Tuesday before the press in Brussels.
Return operations between third countries
Until now, Frontex could only offer training and technical assistance to third countries through work arrangements. With this new regulation, the agency is empowered to organize and execute return operations from one third country to another third country.
In addition, the international agreements signed between the EU and third countries, which previously were limited to border management, may formally include return operations. Now it is about "carrying out returns from third countries to other third countries," detail community sources, who point to the possibility of signing international agreements "that are in the interest of the EU."
Featured story
The European Parliament approves the Vox proposal to break the EU-Morocco agreement
1 minute
To connect all the administrative flow between national, European, and third country authorities, the proposal establishes a common architecture. Thus, each member state must operate a return case management system within a maximum period of four years, with the aim of facilitating administrative and operational coordination among the various authorities involved.
"We must be the ones who decide who can enter the EU, who can stay, and who must leave," stated the head of Interior of the community bloc.
Monitoring of social networks enters Frontex's mandate
Without directly mentioning Ceuta, the Austrian leader wanted to focus on those "member states facing exceptional situations," such as hybrid threats, irregular mass arrivals, online disinformation, or the instrumentalization of migration.
In his view, the EU "must learn the lesson," which is why he proposes that Frontex have the capacity to detect "dangerous trends in advance." "It will have the explicit mandate to monitor social networks for content that endangers people," he assured.
The new mandate of Frontex to supervise publicly accessible social media content, with the aim of identifying risks preventively, will also serve to flag those contents that are considered illegal.
In this way, and under the framework of the Digital Services Act (DSA, for its acronym in English), the agency will be able to request the competent national authorities to issue legal removal orders directed at digital platforms. Therefore, it is not about attributing to Frontex a direct capacity to remove publications, but rather about reinforcing its role in detecting possible threats and activating the mechanisms provided for in community regulations.
Beyond the removal of illegal content, this supervision seeks to anticipate the response of the authorities to the circulation of false information on social networks, especially when it may contribute to triggering or exacerbating crisis situations at external borders.
The next step: the reform of asylum procedures
With the crisis in Ceuta as a backdrop, the EU thus doubles down on its commitment to tighten its migration policies and strengthen the management of the return of migrants in irregular situations. The reform of Frontex constitutes another piece of this roadmap, which aims to equip the agency with greater capabilities for anticipation, intervention, and coordination with national and third-country authorities.
The details of the reform of the asylum procedures that Brunner's team is also working on are still pending. "We plan to do the same with our asylum procedures," community sources acknowledge, anticipating that the review of Frontex's mandate will not be the last modification of the European migration framework. With this roadmap, the community executive confirms its commitment to accelerate response mechanisms in exceptional situations and strengthen border control.