The Dutch commander Hans Leijtens has been elected Tuesday as the new executive director of the European border and coast guard (Frontex) after winning in a secret ballot to the other two candidates to take over in the European agency after the scandal that forced the resignation of the previous director, Fabrice Leggeri, for irregularities in its management and alleged collusion with hot returns in the Mediterranean.
Leijtens has prevailed over a Croatian Secretary of State, Terezija Gras, and the current acting director of Frontex, the Latvian Aija Kalnaja, who took over temporarily while Leggeri’s replacement was chosen and lost options when it emerged last week that the European anti-fraud office (OLAF) is investigating her.
Interior Commissioner Ylva Johansson has congratulated via social media the new Frontex director, 59, a commander in the Koninklijke Marechaussee, the royal gendarmerie of the Netherlands, while thanking Kalnaja for her «excellent leadership during a difficult period» during her interim mandate.
«We are committed to further improving the governance of Frontex to better protect the EU’s external border,» Johansson concluded.
The Frontex Management Board has met in extraordinary session and behind closed doors to elect the new director, as reported by the agency itself in a statement, based on the nominations shortlisted by the European Commission and examined by the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) of the European Parliament.
Although Leggeri’s departure was framed in the context of irregularities in the handling of funds, the news of his departure also coincided with the lawsuit of the German NGO Sea Watch before the Court of Justice of the European Union against Frontex for alleged violations of human rights for its collusion in the Mediterranean with hot returns and abuses in the rescue of migrants on the high seas.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
