Public investigation finds Frontex was aware of illegal pushbacks at EU borders On 15 July, the Frontex Scrutiny Working Group in the LIBE Committee published the final investigation report into the alleged role of Frontex in cases of illegal pushbacks at EU borders. While the working group did not find conclusive evidence of the direct involvement of the Agency in activities of pushbacks and/or collective expulsions, the report finds evidence that Frontex was aware of violations carried out by Member States and failed to prevent and address them. The report highlights that Frontex consistently disregarded reports of fundamental rights violations by civil society actors and international human rights bodies, and failed to adequately respond to observations raised by the Fundamental Rights Officer (FRO), the Consultative Forum or through incident reports. The Working Group further regrets the failure of the Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri to respond to many recommendations and opinions submitted by the FRO over the course of four years. According to a Der Spiegel article, Leggeri personally instructed the FRO to delete all information that had been collected about a pushback incident. European Ombudsman finds shortcomings in Frontex complaint mechanisms In a recent inquiry into Frontex complaint mechanisms, published in June, the European Ombudsman found several shortcomings in the agency’s complaints framework, while finding no formal maladministration. In particular, it finds that lack of public awareness, lack of engagement of Frontex officials, and the impossibility to submit anonymous complaints are all reasons which may explain the low number of complaints introduced between 2016 and January 2021. The inquiry further finds that the way in which the complaints mechanism works isn’t sufficiently transparent, and that the Executive Director’s cooperation with the Fundamental Rights Officer isn’t satisfactory. In addition, the inquiry found that the FRO does not have sufficient independence with regard to the serious incident reports procedure.