EU Border Protection Agency: Dutchman becomes new Frontex boss

The EU border protection agency Frontex, which has come under criticism due to several scandals, is getting a new executive director: the Dutch General Leijtens. He succeeds the retired Frenchman Leggeri.

Hans Leitjens is commander of the Dutch military police, has served in Afghanistan, among other places, and has repeatedly criticized Frontex on the board of directors. The agency is at a crossroads, as the new executive director explained in his application speech to the EU parliamentarians in November: “The situation at the EU’s external borders is challenging. Many member countries have to deal with a growing number of refugees.”

The new executive director must therefore make Frontex fit for the tasks of the future. “I applied because I am concerned that Frontex has not yet exhausted its potential as a border and coast guard agency,” Leijtens explained.

Protecting fundamental rights as “part of the task”

Irregular migration is one of the major challenges facing the EU and Frontex is therefore more important than ever, Leijtens was convinced. It is about effective protection of the external borders, the repatriation of people who are not entitled to stay and the fight against cross-border crime. The border guards are often confronted with professionally equipped arms, drug and people smugglers.

The 59-year-old Leitjens knows the situation at the EU’s external borders from numerous operations: “It’s very brutal and violent there. I see it as my personal mission to fight cross-border crime and make Frontex a professional agency that able and willing to do a good job at the border,” he said in November.

“Compliance with human rights is not a contradiction, but part of the task. Because fundamental rights belong to us as a European community, and compliance with these values ​​is also our responsibility.”

Two contenders

The Dutchman prevailed against two competitors: the previous interim director of Frontex, Aija Kalnaja, who many accused of being too close to the former management system, which was characterized by corruption and fraud.

An argument against the Croatian Terezija Gras was that as State Secretary in the Croatian Ministry of the Interior she is repeatedly associated with violent rejections, so-called pushbacks. Frontex would like to make people forget the accusation of having tolerated and covered up such pushbacks in the past.

Leijtens before a big task

For the new beginning, someone had to come with a clean slate, says Lena Dupont, domestic policy spokeswoman for the CDU/CSU group in the EU Parliament: “In my view, in Hans Leijtens a candidate has been elected who, both in operational terms and in the field Management experience of a quite complex agency, also in a politically not entirely uncontroversial field, brings the necessary experience to accompany the agency into calm waters.”

Expectations of the new Executive Director are high. He must quickly develop the first positive changes of the past few months. Probably his most important project will be the creation of a permanent reserve of 10,000 border guards who will patrol the external borders from 2027.