“NGOs are not a pull factor”, says Frontex director

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Leijtens’ position, stated in an interview with Euronews, contradicts that of a confidential document of the agency relating to the migration routes from Libya to Europe, never made public but reported by the AdnKronos news agency in November 2022 and repeatedly cited by members of the Italian government to counter the activities of NGOs.

“You’ve never heard me say I’m a pull factor. I never said that, and my opinion is that they are not.”

A change of pace for Frontex?

At the end of last year, Leijtens had expressed a similar concept during a hearing at the European Parliament. Frontex’s position on the “pull factor” theory (that is, that NGO rescue boats push migrants to set sail) seems to have changed with the change of the agency’s director.

The previous one, the French Fabrice Lighthad been accused of having covered up some mass pushbacks of asylum seekers, illegal according to European law, carried out by the Greek police in the Aegean Sea with the tacit consent of Frontex agents.

Read more took office in March 2023almost a year later Leggeri’s resignationwho in the meantime has become a member of the European Parliament for the radical right party National Rallyand sits in the Patriots for Europe group, the same as the League.

The two met on September 4, in a hearing in which Leijtens updated the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee, of which Leggeri is now a member, on Frontex’s activities. Several MEPs who spoke during the debate said the new director seems to pay more attention to protecting the fundamental rights of migrants than his predecessor.

“The first thing for our agents is saving lives on land and at sea. What we can do also depends on resources, but at least we always promise to do it. I repeat: all Frontex officers have taken an oath promising to serve and protect. This is what we do, the number one priority,” Leijtens told Euronews.

Irregular Migrants Sharply Decline in Europe

The meeting with the MEPs was also the occasion to present the latest data of Frontex on irregular immigration to the European Union.

In the first seven months of 2024, irregular border crossings at European borders have decreased by 36% compared to the previous year, especially due to the decrease in the Balkan route (-75%) and in the central Mediterranean route (-64%). The 32 thousand irregular landings registered in July, became just over 43 thousand at the beginning of September according to the data of the Italian Ministry of the Interior: less than half of the 115,000 of 2023.

On the other hand, landings in the Canary Islands have more than doubled, particularly under pressure in recent weeksand entries from Belarus to the Baltic countries almost tripled.

In total, irregular crossings recorded by Frontex from January to July 2024 are 113.400: the number of migrants actually entering the territory of the Union could be lower, since the same individual could be registered several times for different border crossings.