The European Ombudsman has opened an inquiry into how the EU Agency Frontex implements its fundamental rights obligations. The investigation has been opened due to the number of civil society organisations that have questioned whether Frontex is doing enough to comply with the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, the European Ombudsman, has opened an inquiry into how Frontex implements its fundamental rights obligations. The Ombudsman has asked Frontex to reply by the 31 of May to a number of questions about its understanding and implementation of these obligations. Frontex is an EU agency based in Warsaw that coordinates the operational cooperation between Member States in the field of border security.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights became legally binding in 2009. Since then, a number of civil society organisations have questioned whether Frontex is doing enough to comply with the Charter, for example, in its deployment of EU border guards to Greece where migrant detainees were transferred to detention centres and kept under conditions which have been criticised by the European Court of Human Rights.

The Ombudsman asks Frontex questions concerning the agency's obligations to draw up a fundamental rights strategy and codes of conduct applicable to its operations, and to devise an effective mechanism for monitoring respect of fundamental rights in its activities. The Ombudsman also requests information about the fundamental rights officer, about who takes responsibility for European border guard teams, and about the actions Frontex envisages in case it detects violations of fundamental rights.