Ms Emily O'Reilly:

They are ongoing. As I said, there are quite a few investigations into Frontex, including by ourselves. We are looking at the complaints mechanism introduced in respect of Frontex a few years ago under a new regulation after it had for a long time refused to accept a complaints mechanism or the need to have one. Its point of view is that any abuses or violations of fundamental rights or any problems that arise in the context of a Frontex operation are the responsibility of the member state and that the agency is just there to co-ordinate and help. We disagreed with that and pointed out that Frontex is a European agency. The uniforms of Frontex guards have the EU logo on them so the agency has to take responsibility or to forward complaints if they are made. I made a special report to the European Parliament in that regard, which it supported, and there is now a complaints mechanism. However, the extent to which that is known about or used is contested. We are looking quite forensically at this, asking very basic questions such as how many complaints there have been, how many were admitted or dealt with and what was the outcome. This is simple stuff.

The Senator mentioned other issues. We would not look at alleged pushbacks in a particular state or so on, including what a member state did. We would look at how Frontex acted. We are going through in fine detail with Frontex the protocols it uses in cases such as those outlined by the Senator. This takes in decision-making, how it deals with collaborators in member states and so on. We can go through what is almost an administrative checklist of what is supposed to be done versus what is done.