Activities of José GUSMÃO related to 2022/2124(DEC)
Shadow opinions (1)
OPINION on discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency for the financial year 2021
Amendments (12)
Amendment 7 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. StresseDeeply regrets that Frontex is by large the Agency that received more significant budget increases in the last years; recalls that the Agency budget has skyrocketed from €118 million in 2011 to €741 million in 2021, and to an annual average of €900 million for the 2021-2027 period despite serious concerns over the lack of implementation of its regulation and fundamental rights violations;
Amendment 15 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Notes the Court’s observation concerning weaknesses in recruitment procedures, which undermine the principles of transparency and equal treatment of the candidates; notes the serious internal control weaknesses in the Agency’ delegation process, ex-ante controls and procurement procedures; deplores the many payment delayspoint in particular the procurement procedure signed in December 2021 for the provision of travel agency services that is currently being investigated by OLAF as reported by the media; deplores the many payment delays; deplores that the corrective actions regarding the ECA’s previous observations are almost all still ongoing;
Amendment 17 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3 a. Reiterates its strong concern regarding the media reports in August 2022 whereby the Agency is accused of exploiting cultural mediators by using a contractor who allegedly offers them an effective wage of less than EUR 2,50 an hour, as well as considering that those mediators need to be available 24 hours a day and seven days a week; points the petition initiated by cultural mediators in this regard as well as their complaint to the European Ombudsman; deplores that no information about this concern could be found in the information provided by the Agency to the Parliament;
Amendment 23 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Notes the drawing up of a fundamental rights strategy and action plan; regrets that the obligation included in Article 110(6) of Regulation (EU) 2019/1896 to deploy at least 40 fundamental rights monitors (FRMs) has been met with significant delay; notes that the number of fundamental rights monitors now stands at 46, 31 at Administrator and 15 at Assistant level; recalls the Parliament and Commission’s long standing call for at least 40 FRMs at AD level; deeply deplores that despite the significant overall staff increase for the Agency, the Fundamental Rights Officer still lacks adequate human resources; urges the Agency to provide its fundamental rights officer with adequate resources and staff; condemns that the FRMs are still not granted access to all operational areas, nor to monitor debriefing activities and interviews;
Amendment 32 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. TConsiders that the Management board has failed in its mission to uphold respect for fundamental rights by not acting, and thereby bears also the responsibility for the violations highlighted by the OLAF report; takes the position that the Management Board should play a proactive role in identifying and preventing serious risk of fundamental rights violations; reiterates the importance to implement the standard operating proceduresof abiding by the Agency’s regulation, in particular article 46 when conditions stipulated by the regulation are met to withdraw the financing of, or suspend or terminate, or not launch Frontex activities in cases where such risks arise;
Amendment 41 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Expresses its utmost concerns with regard to persisting allegations reports of push backs accompanied by ill-treatment of persons in the context of Frontex operations in Lithuania, Latvia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Greece; reiterates its call on the Agency to suspend its operations supporting return-related operations from Hungary as long as, and as concluded by the Court of Justice of the European Union, the return decisions issued by the Hungarian authorities are incompatible with Directive 2008/115/EC and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union; reiterates its concern that the Court of Justice established through its judgement of 30 June 2022 that Lithuanian legislation was incompatible with Union and international law; deplores that the Agency has failed to act in accordance with Article 46 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1896, even after the judgment of the Court of Justice;
Amendment 44 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6 a. Notes the legal actions against the Agency initiated at the Court of Justice of the European Union, on behalf of victims who had sought protection in Greece and instead of processing their asylum claims were collectively expelled; believes that the persisting reported fundamental rights violations in Greece have reached the level at which the conditions for triggering Article 46(4) of the Agency’s regulation are met; considers that the past Executive Director and the interim Executive Director have failed to act and calls on the new Executive Director to act by triggering article 46(4); calls on the Agency to provide in this regard to the Parliament all relevant documentation assessing the fundamental rights situation in Greece, including the FRO opinion of 1st September 2022, Serious Incident Reports from 2021 and 2022 as well as information about the investigation into the case of the Agency’s cultural mediator that was assaulted by Greek border guards and forced with at least 130 third country national across the border to Turkey, as reported in November 2021 to the Management Board;
Amendment 45 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 b (new)
Paragraph 6 b (new)
6 b. Highlights the urgent need for a FRO opinion in relation to the Agency’s aerial surveillance in the Central Mediterranean in the context of Article 46 of its Regulation; points that the direct transmission of information to the so- called Libyan coast guards in order for the persons to be intercepted at sea, including when boats are in Member States international waters, is making the Agency’s complicit of crimes that are then perpetrated against the people pulled back to Libya;
Amendment 48 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Reiterates its profound concerns about the findings of the OLAF report of 15 February 2022 on investigations into Frontex, and expresses its utter dismay in the behaviour and actions described in the findings and the lack of accountability; considers that the findings of the OLAF report are a matter of public interest and should be made public without further delay; deplores the long delay for MEPs as well as members of the senior management and the FRO to be granted access to the OLAF report; considers that the findings of the OLAF report are a matter of public interest; points out that two additional OLAF reports are expected to be presented this year in relation to Frontex; calls for immediate access of Members of the European Parliament to these additional reports when they will be finalised to ensure Members scrutiny as well as of all executive staff of the agency; calls on these reports to be made public
Amendment 55 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7 a. Deplores that, despite the information provided by the OLAF report that information was concealed from “inquiries made by the European Parliament and the Management board” regarding some of the examined incidents, there has been no re- examination at all of these incidents; Sees this as a total lack of respect for the European Parliament’s scrutiny role;
Amendment 60 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Expresses its deep concerns in relation to media revelations that in the context of the expansion of a mass surveillance programme at Europe’s external borders (PeDRA, or ‘Processing of Personal Data for Risk Analysis’), Frontex and the European Commission side-lined their own data protection oversight bodies and pursued an intrusive collection of personal data from migrants and refugees to feed into Europol’s criminal databases; highlights that actions were taken only following the media reports;
Amendment 72 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Reiterates that the increased competences and budget of the Agency need to be accompanied with a corresponding increase in accountability and transparency, as well as full respect for and protection of fundamental rights; stresses that the granting of discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the Agency is conditional on such accountability and transparency, and fundamental rights compliance; regrets that the agency, despite commitment of the interim Executive Director to increased transparency, has failed to provide individual MEPs of the FSWG with requested documents;