Back-
Ombudsman van Zutphen met FRONTEX Executive Director Hans Leijtens
The National Ombudsman of the Netherlands and European Regional President, Reinier van Zutphen, visited Warsaw last week. The aim of the visit was to talk to Frontex. Frontex is the European Union Border and Coast Guard Agency. It supports EU Member States in the management of the EU’s external borders and the fight against cross-border crime. Over the past years, there have been many disturbing signals about pushbacks of migrants at the EU borders, which sometimes resulted in people dying. Several National Ombudsman have addressed this in their own countries.
The reason for the visit is that the European Parliament has adopted a Pact on Migration and Asylum in April of this year. The so-called Migration Pact is a set of new rules managing migration and establishing a common asylum system at EU level. The implementation will have a big impact on how the EU deals with migrants and asylum seekers.
Migration and asylum issues have been a bone of contention between political parties in EU member states for a long time and this has resulted in the rise of far right parties. For an ombuds institution, politics are not on the agenda, but human rights and good governance are. Many ombuds institutions all over the world receive complaints from migrants and asylum seekers. For this reason, it is important to be in the vanguard of the implementation process of the Migration Pact.
The meeting with Frontex allowed for a better insight in what will happen in the near future and what may have an impact on the work of ombuds institutions. The National Ombudsman will organise a Poldershop on the topic of the Migration Pact later on in the year to explore with his European colleagues what can be expected and what actions, possibly together, they can set up to be prepared.
Reinier van Zutphen also had a meeting with Adam Bodnar, who is the former Commissioner for Human Rights of Poland and at present the Minister of Justice. The ombuds institution was under threat under the former government, led by the PiS party. Finally, Reinier van Zutphen met with the present Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Marcin Wiącek, and learned about their experience at the borders with Belarus. It was clear that ombuds institutions have an important role to play in safeguarding fundamental rights.
Source: The National Ombudsman, The Netherlands
