Frontex goes drone shopping as EU looks to keep migrants out

As member states call on the European Commission to enforce external borders, the EU’s border agency, Frontex, launched tenders totalling around €400 million, for equipment including purchasing more drones, and other surveillance technology.   

In response to EU members in July, Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson seems to be following up on their request to strengthen the EU external borders.

The commissioner has pledged to tighten the EU’s visa regime and launch a €150 million call for proposals for the EU’s “border surveillance capacity”. 

In letters from May and June to the Commission earlier this year, member states called on the EU executive to step up efforts to externalise migration, by preventing irregular migrants from setting foot on EU soil. 

In her speech to the European Parliament before her re-election as Commission President in July, Ursula von der Leyen announced her plan to triple Frontex’s staff and appoint a commissioner for the Mediterranean, to tackle the movement of people trying to get to the EU’s southern member states.   

This summer, the EU border agency, Frontex, has opened a series of tenders to strengthen the agency’s capabilities, along the EU’s external borders.  

The tenders include; a call for drones and linked services for maritime surveillance, worth €184 million, a call for surveillance equipment including night vision goggles worth €19 million, a call for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services worth €186.5 million, as well as a €3 million pilot project for drones in land borders, for joint operations with Bulgaria. A bill totalling just under €400 million.

A 10-year journey 

Frontex’s use of drones is not new. The agency has been flying them over the EU’s external borders in Italy, Malta and Greece for years.  

To improve migration coordination between members, the European Border Surveillance System EUROSUR was set up in 2013 as a 24/7 surveillance framework, for the EU’s external borders, providing a situational picture with real-time data and information, including from the ‘pre-frontier’, those areas just outside the EU’s borders. 

In 2018, Frontex first used drones for surveillance purposes, as part of its operations, detecting almost 5,000 people at sea that year. 

Drones were integrated into the EU’s air border surveillance system, as Eurosur’s mandate was expanded in 2019.  

A year later, Frontex awarded two €50 million contracts to France’s Airbus and Israeli defence and airspace company IAI, to deploy Heron drones, capable of more than 30-hour-long flights.  

They were deployed to the 2023 Messenia migrant boat disaster when 650 migrants died in one of the worst incidents in EU history. 

In total, Frontex spent roughly €275 million in pilot projects from 2014 to 2022 to research new technologies, many of them related to drones, Yasha Maccanico, a researcher at non-profit Statewatch and the University of Bristol, told Euractiv. 

The EU border agency’s use of drones came under scrutiny in 2022, when intelligence gathered by Frontex drones operated out of Malta was used by Libyan authorities to turn back migrant boats in the Mediterranean.

A Human Rights Watch report concluded that in 2021, around 10,000 people were intercepted at sea by Libyan authorities and forcibly returned to the country thanks to intelligence gathered by Frontex.

“Without the information from EU aircraft, the Libyan Coast Guard would not have the technical and operational means to intercept these boats on such a scale,” the report stated.

This comes among multiple other accusations of illegal pushbacks and cooperation with the Libyan Coastguard, also accused of human rights violations at sea and in Libya, as well as for shooting at rescue vessels.

Cash infusion 

This summer’s tenders indicate an expansion of Frontex’s drone capabilities, with the intention for a large-scale, consistent deployment of drones for border surveillance.  

The agency plans to spend €184 million in four years, according to the  June tender, compared to the €275 million spent for pilots over eight years. That’s roughly 30% more annually and almost double the funds paid to Airbus and IAI starting in 2020.  

Migration will become a political priority among member states and within EU institutions, in 2025, the Commission’s proposed budget for Frontex will almost hit the €1 billion mark, at €997 million, a sharp increase from a €233 million budget in 2016. 

The agency’s 2023-2027 technical strategy puts drones and technology front and centre. 

But drones will be “part of a network of initiatives that can be seen in layers,” military analyst, Major Rasmus Ross from the air and space warfare centre of the Royal Danish Defence College told Euractiv, suggesting other equipment is needed for a complete picture. 

What are drones for? 

For Maccanico, the increased spending on drones for “situational awareness” in “pre-frontier areas,” essentially means that Frontex will be able to identify vessels earlier, and closer to third-country borders, with patchy human rights records – such as Libya or Tunisia, and therefore push EU borders further back. 

Using more drones for surveillance means fewer European coastguards and Frontex vessels will be needed at sea. With fewer EU vessels, there is a greater chance that a non-EU country will respond to migrant boats, removing the obligation for EU responders to bring them ashore, said Maccanico. 

Frontex did not address the criticism directly but instead emphasised its declared goal to combat human trafficking.  

“[Smugglers] cram people into unsafe boats with hardly any life vests, food, water, or fuel, with little concern for their safety. This is why it is crucial to spot people in distress at sea before it is too late,” Frontex told Euractiv.  

“Every single time a Frontex plane or drone discovers a boat in distress, it immediately alerts all the national rescue centres in the region,” Frontex added. 

Whether drones should be seen as part of a strategy to keep migrants from setting foot in Europe, Ross would not speculate.  

“I’m not the right person to judge whether the EU’s strategy is to keep refugees out of the EU by stopping them at the border, but it’s certainly harder to control the flow of refugees once they are on land,” he said. 

Asked directly about how the agency sees its role changing in light of the recent letters between the Commission and member states, Frontex responded, saying that it “does not comment on politically related issues.” 

“Our commitment is based on the EU Regulation which clearly describes our mission to support the EU Member States in their efforts to protect EU external borders,” they added. 

[Edited by Aurélie Pugnet/Rajnish Singh]

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