What changed between the plenary report and the adopted text

Changed:2. Expresses concerns about the several outstanding legal cases and criticism on the agency´sAgency´s involvement in human rights violations, which does not comply with its own regulations and fundamental rights obligations;

Changed:3. Notes the Agency’s measures on transparency and scrutiny, namely providing Parliament and the Council with an overview of its activities through a new reporting tool called the ‘dashboard’; encourages the chairpersons of the ManagementAgency’s BoardMB to continue inviting Parliament observers to its meetings and to consider extending the invitations to all agenda items, including in camera points, and to continue providing all supporting documents without exception and, if deemed necessary, in a confidential manner;

Changed:8. Notes for a third year in a row a recurrent ‘Emphasis of matter’ drawn by the Court on the basis of the notes to the Agency’s final annual accounts, regarding an understatement of the contribution from the Schengen associated countries (SAC), which in 2022 was equivalent to the amount of EUR 3,2 million whereas the Union’s contribution was overstated by the same amount; is concerned that the agreements between the Union and the SAC serving as legal basis for calculating their contributions to the Union budget are unclear and allow divergent interpretations resulting in a lower contribution by SAC calculated around 7 %; notes from the Court’s report the Agency’s reply that the understanding between the Agency’s Accounting Officer on the one hand and the Agency’s MB, the Commission and SAC on the other hand is different with regard to the modality of application of the calculation of the SAC contribution based on the current agreements in place with SAC; notes that in the Agency’s interpretation the methodology used since 2016 is in line with the applicable legal framework and agreements and the Agency’s MB concluded in 2021 that the calculation methodology for the SAC contributions would not be revised; notes the Court’s renewed arguments as to why the Agency’s interpretation is flawed; is of the opinion that in no way SAC should contribute less than expected to the Agency’s budget and calls for a review of the Agency’s interpretation of the methodology;

Changed:12. Notes the various initiatives taken by the Agency in 2022, including the signature of a status agreement with North Macedonia and a Memorandum of Understanding and an Operation Action plan with Cyprus, as well as the doubling of the Agency’s presence in the joint operation JO Serbia Land 2022 and the opening of a new operational area at the Serbian-Hungarian border; stresses that the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that the Hungary’s activities are incompatible with the Return Directive and Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union; notes with concern that even though the Agency said it withdrew operations from Hungary in 2021, it nonetheless continued to support Hungary’s return operations; reiterates the FSWG’s calls on the Agency’s executive director to suspend operations from Hungary;

Changed:14. Notes that operational activities conducted on land borders in 2022 resulted in approximately 49 000 incidents reported, involving more than 26 000 apprehended irregular migrants and 700 smugglers arrested; notes the Agency’s efforts that led to the return by air of 24 850 non-EU nationals (+35(increase of 35 % vs.compared to 2021), of which 9 919 persons on 291 operations by charter flights to 32 countries of return and 14 931 persons (+84(increase of 84 % vs.compared to 2021) by 8 789 scheduled flights to 116 countries of return; notes further the Agency’s efforts under all maritime joint operations in 2022 which led to the detection of 1 105 facilitators and 11 traffickers of human beings, the seizure of tens of tons of smuggled drugs and the rescue of thousands of migrants; notes, at the same time, the many recent tragedies of shipwrecks and other deadly incidents with migrants on the Mediterranean Sea; calls on the Agency to fully cooperate with the Ombudsman investigation; observes that 1 422 multipurpose surveillance missions were carried out by the Agency in 2022 with as a result 1 177 events and 51 362 migrants detected;

Changed:17. Commends the Agency for the significant progress made in 2022 with regard to the establishment of the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) Central Unit (ECU) through activities such as the development of internal rules and procedures, a mid-term strategy, an engagement framework, a business impact analysis, as well as the drafting of security, business continuity and disaster recovery plans and the conduct of the ECU’s first risk assessment; notes that for the setup of ECU, in 2022 the Agency finalised the recruitment of the second wave of ECU’s staff reaching a rate of 55 % of all posts envisaged and launched other recruitment procedures; welcomes the fact that the Commission has put in place in 2022, with the support of the Agency, a public information campaign promoting the ETIAS among the nationals of 60 visa-free countries; notes the other operational achievements of the Agency such as the initiation of the development of a new chain of command for standing corps with a single operational coordination structure and the delegation of more decision-making responsibilities to the field;

Changed:18. Welcomes the Agency’s Annual Report on the practical application of the Regulation (EU) No 656/2014 regarding the Agency’s maritime operations in 2022, namely the Joint Operations: Themis (Italy), Poseidon (Greece), Indalo (Spain), Opal Coast (Belgium and France) and Multipurpose Maritime Operation Black Sea (Bulgaria and Romania); notes the Agency’s observation that there is an asymmetry between the standards and requirements applicable to the Agency according to Regulation (EU) No 656/2014 and those applicable to other actors (e.g NATO, EMSA, EFCA) that are involved in maritime operations, whereas such actors, when acting with the Agency’s support, follow the international maritime law; supports the Agency in exploring the possibilities of including in the relevant status agreements similar standards to the ones reflected in Regulation (EU) No 656/2014;

Changed:20. Acknowledges the key role of the FROFundamental Rights Officer (FRO) since 2021 in the implementation of various fundamental rights related recommendations stemming from the EO, FSWG and FRaLO; notes from the annual report (hereinafter the ‘FRO Report’) of the Agency’s FRO for 2022 (the ‘FRO Report’) that the majority of those recommendations have been implemented; calls on the Agency to fully cooperate with the FRO and implement all of its recommendations;

Changed:21. Recalls that the Agency and relevant Member States authorities constitute the main guarantor for strong and protected European external borders while upholding fundamental rights and international protection obligations; notes that the FRO has concluded in his opinion of 1 September 2022 that the conditions for triggering Article 46 of the Frontex Regulation were met; further notes that the Agency Working Group on Fundamental Rights Art 46 issued series of recommendations concerning fundamental rights in Greece of which in October 2023 four were fully implemented; notes that the Agency Working Group intends to monitor further progress and that recommended measures continue to be applied; calls for all recommendations to be fully implemented as matter of priority and on the Agency to continue informing the Parliament on the progress made;

Removed:22. Welcomes the decision of the Agency’s MB of 20 July 2022 that has strengthened the cooperation and communication between various Agency entities, including the CF and the FRO through rules for the Agency’s Executive Director and MB to inform the CF of the follow-up to the recommendations of the CF and to ensure that action is taken with regard to the recommendations of the FRO; welcomes further the adoption in 2022 of the standard operating procedure on Article 46 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1896 and standard operating procedure regarding the working methods related to FRO’s investigative powers;

Added:22. Notes the European Ombudsman’s inquiry into the Agency’s role in search and rescue operations (OI/3/2023/MHZ), which was launched after the Adriana tragedy of June 2023; notes with concern the Ombudsman’s conclusions that the Agency is unable to fulfil its fundamental rights obligations and too reliant on Member States to act when migrants are in distress, because the Agency lacks internal guidelines on issuing emergency signals and the Agency’s fundamental rights monitors are not always sufficiently involved in decisions on emergencies, and that since the Adriana tragedy no sufficient changes have been made to prevent such incidents from happening again; recalls that the discharge authority has repeatedly pointed out those shortcomings in previous discharge resolutions and regrets that the issue remains unresolved; notes the Ombudsman’s call on the Agency to address the identified shortcomings, and its call on the Parliament, Commission and Council to establish an independent commission of enquiry into the matter;

Removed:23. Welcomes that, following the recommendations for an effective border agency compliant with fundamental rights and in order to improve accountability, regularity, and legality of all Agency’s activities, an additional 22 Fundamental Rights Monitors (FROMs) were externally recruited; recalls that all FROMs should be recruited on AD level, as soon possible through the appropriate procedures; notes that, based on the Agency’s updated mandate, there will be a demand for additional FROMs in the future; welcomes that the Fundamental Rights Office conducted 1 183 deployment days visiting 50 countries which is a substantial increase in comparison to the previous year;

Added:23. Welcomes the decision of the Agency’s MB of 20 July 2022 that has strengthened the cooperation and communication between various Agency entities, including the Consultative Forum (CF) and the FRO through rules for the Agency’s Executive Director and MB to inform the CF of the follow-up to the recommendations of the CF and to ensure that action is taken with regard to the recommendations of the FRO; welcomes further the adoption in 2022 of the standard operating procedure on Article 46 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1896 and standard operating procedure regarding the working methods related to FRO’s investigative powers;

Changed:28.29. Commends the Agency for its close cooperation and/or resource sharing with various agencies and other stakeholders such as the Commission, Member States or third countries; points out the horizontal benefits of working together and adopting best practices and that joint initiatives bring together diverse perspectives, reduce duplication of effort, enhance learning and strengthen relationships between the participants; notes in this sense the Agency’s actions in connection with, among others: - the negotiations on the renewal of working arrangements that structure bilateral cooperation with several agencies in the justiceJustice and homeHome Affairs (JHA) field; - the relocation of some of its staff to eu-LISA for the period 2022-2024 for EES and ETIAS related projects and to Europol as of 1 January 2024 for projects in the area of the Union’s interoperability of systems; - and the contributions by the Agency on a regular basis to annual work programmes of other agencies for alignment of activities;

Changed:57.58. Notes the from the Court’s report, for a second year in a row, an observation on the Agency’s internal control weakness in the area of recruitment procedures; notes in this context that in 2022 in a procedure for recruitment of temporary agents, individual scorings by members of the selection committee (SC) were used, instead of applying a consensual method as stipulated by the Agency’s internal rules; regrets the reoccurrence of such weakness, in spite of the Agency having adopted in January 2022 new implementing rules with clearer instructions to the selection committee members aiming to ensure more consistent assessment and harmonised procedures; welcomes the Agency’s commitment to extend to the recruitment of temporary agents the rules whereby only one final evaluation report agreed between the SC members is considered, without taking into account their individual scorings; invites the Agency to strengthen the application of the new rules and its internal controls in the area of recruitment procedures;

Changed:61.62. Notes that the opinions of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) on the Agency’ s MB decisions 68/2021 and 69/2021 were negative; notes that the Agency created an implementation plan to address all EDPS recommendations in that regard; notes further that those MB decisions have been redrafted and re-adjusted after regular meetings and informal exchanges of the Agency’s Data Protection Officer with the EDPS staff, as well as by taking into account the EDPS audit report published on 24 May 2023 (hereinafter the ‘audit report’); notes that the audit report verified the compliance of the Agency’s processing of personal data in the context of Joint Operations with Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 and the relevant provisions of the Regulation (EU) 2019/1896; notes further in this context that the audit report identified 36 formal findings and issued 32 recommendations with regard to the screening of persons and debriefing interviews, joint controllers’ arrangements, low reliability of information used for the production of risk analyses and the implementation of Datadata Protectionprotection by Designdesign and Byby Default,default, among other; notes with concern from the audit report that the EDPS findings also indicate that the Agency has breached multiple articles of legal basis applicable to the Agency (Regulation (EU) 2018/1725, Regulation (EU) 2019/1896 and MB Decision 58/2015) by not assessing the strict necessity of sharing data packages with Europol for the performance of its mandate and, consequently, the EDPS has opened an investigation, which may result in the exercise of enforcement actions; regrets that EDPS identified after its audit new six cases of transmission from the Agency to Europol of personal data relating to NGOs' staff whose lawfulness needs to be further investigated; calls on the Agency to address all recommendations within the deadlines for implementation issued by the EDPS in its audit report and keep the discharge authority informed of the development in this matter;

Changed:63.64. Refers, for other observations of a cross-cutting nature accompanying its decision on discharge, to its resolution of ...11 April 2024 on the performance, financial management and control of the agencies.