Frontex suspends reintegration program after blowing through its budget

Por Eliza Gkritsi, Hanne Cokelaere — POLITICOPolitics » POLITICO

BRUSSELS — The EU border agency Frontex is suspending a support program for deported migrants after its budget for the year ran out earlier than anticipated, emails seen by POLITICO show. 

The border agency paused new applications for reintegration support under its program on Oct. 2 after estimating that costs had “reached a level that does no longer ensure full financial coverage,” according to an email sent by Executive Director Hans Leijtens to staff on that date.

The program, which has operated since 2022, offers financial assistance, healthcare, vocational training and counseling to people who are returned to their home countries after being refused the right to stay in the EU. Reintegration support forms part of the EU’s plan to boost returns of unsuccessful asylum-seekers.

The suspension comes as the EU seeks to step up deportations from the bloc — a leading pillar of EU migration policy, and the object of new legislation adopted earlier this month — and weeks before the European Commission is expected to propose expanding the mandate of the border agency, including its role in returns and reintegration.

Frontex cannot resume the program without additional cash. The agency asked the Commission for more funds, but is waiting for clarity on the EU budget for 2027, and the next seven-year budget starting in 2028, the emails said.

“There is no point in talking about a more ambitious European return policy without also talking about the resources needed to deliver it,” Frontex spokesperson Chris Borowski told POLITICO. “Ambition and funding have to go hand in hand.”

Borowski confirmed that the agency had suspended new cases, but stressed that individuals already been accepted into the program wouldn’t be affected and that Frontex would also continue to offer EU countries “other forms of assistance” on returns, such as operational and technical support.

“Returns do not end when a plane lands. Helping people rebuild their lives after returning to their home countries is an important part of making migration management work. It takes planning, people and money,” he said.

With 2,368 new cases per month on average, the agency took on significantly more migrants seeking reintegration support than it expected. Cases in September were 63% higher than Frontex’s target, according to Leijtens’ email to staff. In the first half of this year, the agency took on around 75% more cases than it did in the same period last year.

In previous years, Frontex was able to assign additional funds from other parts of its budget, the email says — signaling the agency has had to search to find the cash to keep the program running in the past.

“Frontex does not have the necessary appropriations to cover the needs further as MFF allocations did not consider that Frontex would be expected to take over EURP funding at the scale we have seen today,” Leijtens wrote, referring to Multiannual Financial Framework, the EU’s seven-year budget.

The agency has raised the issue with the Commission but “no further commitments could be made onwards,” according to the email.

The program’s suspension raises questions about the future of the bloc’s migration approach. Reintegration is “the key ingredient” to making the EU’s returns strategy work, Lukas Gehrke, the director of the U.N.’s migration organization’s global office in Brussels, told POLITICO.

Forced returns are expensive and come with a higher risk of human rights infringements, whereas reintegration support boosts voluntary returns, reduces people’s propensity to attempt to reach the EU again, and tends to ease cooperation with the country to which they return, he argued.

“That means every euro spent on return with reintegration is a euro spent in a more sustainable way,” Gehrke said.

‘Do not argue or defend the EU policy’

In emailed guidance on how to communicate the suspension to migrants who applied for support, seen by POLITICO, staff were told to “acknowledge the institutional problem” with reintegration program funding “so the returnee does not feel personally targeted or punished.”

Counselors should be transparent, validate migrants’ disappointment, wait for their emotions to pass and shift the conversation to what they could still do upon their return, the guidance read, advising: “Do not argue or defend the EU policy.”

Potential returnees “may feel deceived, leading to anger, despondency, or complete withdrawal from the return process,” it also warned.

Expanding the agency’s Frontex mandate featured in the Commission’s five-point plan to address sudden mass movements of people, in the aftermath of migration crisis in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. Besides stepping up the agency’s role in returns and reintegration, the plan also noted an intention to charge Frontex with monitoring the bloc’s external borders and add capacity to quickly deploy forces in the event of an emergency.

“The Commission will propose that Frontex becomes a genuinely European capability with the scale, tools and agility to support Member States wherever and whenever needed,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote in a letter to EU leaders ahead of a summit on Thursday and Friday, where migration is likely to be a flashpoint.

The plans have already raised concerns that the border agency’s mandate is being expanded more quickly than its resources.

Strengthening the border agency’s emergency response capacities, for example, comes with a tradeoff as staff that can be deployed on a moment’s notice cannot be deployed elsewhere, Leijtens, Frontex’s executive director, said at an event earlier this month.  “If they’re in Narva in Estonia, you can’t use them in Italy right now.”

Zoya Sheftalovich contributed to this report.

Fonte: POLITICOPolitics » POLITICO