“(T) the executive director of Frontex said that he expects all these recommendations to be implemented. Otherwise, he would plan to reduce or reduce the financing of co-financed assets,” said Chris Borowski, spokesperson for the EU border agency. These co -financed assets refer to a certain number of Greek coast guard ships.
Officials from the Greek coast guard and the Greek government did not respond to a request for comments.
In January 2025, the European Court of Human Rights recognized the Greek authorities guilty of carrying out systematic decisions of migrants and violating human rights law in the process. The EU previously called Greece to investigate the allegations of migrants abandoned at sea and the deportations by its authorities.
“We are now putting fundamental rights at the heart of these negotiations. In the past, this discussion occurred towards the end of the negotiations, so they were a kind of secondary problem, but now they are really at the heart of these negotiations,” said Borowski.
In 2023, hundreds of migrants would have died at sea when a fishing boat flowed off the coasts of the southern Greece peninsula while trying to reach Libya Europe. The Greek mediator Andreas Pottakis set up an independent investigation into the sinking, after the Hellenic coast guard explicitly refused to carry out his despite the pressure of Frontex. The independent survey recommended disciplinary measures for eight Hellenic coast guards involved in the incident.
The head of fundamental rights of Frontex, Jonas Grimheden, then recommended to temporarily suspend the agency’s activities in Greece.
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