When the EU border and coast guard agency known as Frontex started in 2005, it had a €6m budget. Today it pulls in €320m and employs over 530 people, a staff number set to more than double in the next few years.
But its biggest change is elsewhere. Frontex has effectively become a law enforcement agency. Focus on migration has morphed into drug smuggling, document fraud, terrorism, and cigarette smuggling. It has even seized arms.
"I would not object if you define us as a law enf...
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Nikolaj joined EUobserver in 2012 and covers home affairs. He is originally from Denmark, but spent much of his life in France and in Belgium. He was awarded the King Baudouin Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010.