Part I — Situation overview

On 27 October 2026 the European Commission presented a comprehensive overhaul of the mandate of Frontex, the EU border guard agency. The 275-page draft regulation would amend Regulation (EU) 2019/1896, on which Frontex is based; its adoption requires the approval of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. According to the draft, the agency would gradually, by 2041, rely on a 30,000-strong system: a staff of its own of six thousand, a 17,000-strong European Border and Return Reserve, and a further seven thousand officials seconded by the member states. Members of the reserve would by default serve as national border guards, but could be deployed in Frontex operations if needed. A new Return Coordination Centre would organise deportations, and Frontex could even take part in returns between two countries outside the Union. A new online monitoring and response centre would monitor public social media content. The Commission intends to allocate a budget of EUR 11.8 billion to the agency for the 2028–2034 period, compared with around EUR six billion in the current cycle.

According to EUobserver, the statements made at the press conference do not fully match the text published later: Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen and Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner promised an unchanged, strong fundamental-rights framework. In the paper’s reading, however, the proposal narrows fundamental-rights monitoring and weakens the agency’s ability to halt an operation in a member state because of serious violations. Politico reported on criticism by several Members of the European Parliament and civil society organisations over the social media monitoring mandate.

For Hungary, the topic is not abstract. Frontex suspended its land operations in Hungary in January 2021, after the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in December 2020 that Hungarian asylum practice — including the escorting back of people at the Serbian border — violated EU law. In the same matter, a coercive fine of one million euros a day has been accumulating since 2024, the settlement of which, according to a Telex report, the government is negotiating. MIAK’s reading: the proposal simultaneously offers Hungary operational help on the southern border and would weaken precisely a safeguard whose operation Hungary has experienced on its own border. The Hungarian interest is to keep both greater capacity and an intact fundamental-rights brake.

Part II — Grounding in the literature

There are three legal and theoretical benchmarks for assessing the proposal. Under Article 22 of the EU regulation on digital services (DSA, Digital Services Act), trusted flagger status is awarded by the digital services coordinator of the member state in which the applicant is established. In the case of Warsaw-based Frontex, this would presumably be the Polish authority, not the Hungarian one. The status entails an annual public report and can be revoked. Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) makes restrictions on freedom of expression conditional on a legal basis and on necessity in a democratic society. Article 13 requires an effective remedy, and Protocol No. 4 prohibits the collective expulsion of aliens. Shoshana Zuboff, professor emerita at Harvard Business School and the originator of the theory of surveillance capitalism, describes how “surveillance exceptionalism” reproduces itself. Its essence is that surveillance tools introduced with reference to a crisis remain in place after the crisis, and regulation lags behind them. The detailed discussion of the literature — author by author, with quotations — can be found in section 6.4 Literature in detail.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable steps to the Government for the Council negotiations on the draft regulation and for its domestic preparation.

3.1 A Council position on preserving the suspension power and independent fundamental-rights monitoring (by the start of the Council working party negotiations, at the latest by the end of December 2026)

In the Council, the Government should support the capacity expansion, but lay down two red lines. One is that the obligation of the Frontex Executive Director to suspend or terminate an operation in the event of serious and persistent fundamental-rights violations should not be weakened. The other is that the number and independence of fundamental-rights monitors should not be reduced. For returns between third countries, it should demand a prior, written fundamental-rights assessment for each operation, approved by the Fundamental Rights Officer. This requirement makes the ECHR prohibition of collective expulsion and the principle of non-refoulement verifiable (see 6.4.2). Hungary is a credible actor in this: it is the only member state from which Frontex withdrew precisely through this mechanism. The Hungarian experience shows that the brake really works and creates an incentive to restore compliance with the law. The Government should publish a summary of its position and present it to the European Affairs Committee of the National Assembly. It should seek allies issue by issue among those member states that support both the capacity expansion and the safeguards (KP17). The domestic principles of law-enforcement accountability are laid down in programme point KB6; this proposal is their EU-level counterpart.

3.2 A public impact assessment of Hungary’s staff contribution to the reserve and of Frontex support on the southern border (within 90 days)

The 17,000-strong reserve is built on member-state border guards, so it directly affects the headcount of the Hungarian police, while public debate already speaks of staff shortages in the law-enforcement sector. The Ministry of the Interior, to which border policing is subordinated as part of the police, should prepare a public impact assessment within 90 days. It must cover how many Hungarian police officers the reserve would tie up, for how long, at what cost, and how much of this would be covered by EU funds. In the same document it should assess under what conditions Frontex land support can be requested on the southern border section, if the restart of operations becomes possible after the implementation of the asylum judgment. The impact assessment follows the logic of programme point I3: cost, affected groups and proportionality, with a review date. Border-policing data (apprehensions, returns, seconded staff) should be published quarterly on the data platform under KB1. In this way the negotiating position would be backed by figures, not merely by political intent.

In the Council, the Government should propose that Frontex’s online monitoring task be expressly narrowed to illegal content: advertisements offering people-smuggling services and content organising illegal border crossings. Opinions, reporting or political debate about migration should not fall within this scope. Person-based profiling should not be permitted, in line with the prohibition in programme point KB5. Since trusted flagger status would presumably be awarded by the Polish digital services coordinator (see 6.4.1), Hungary’s room for manoeuvre lies at two points. One is the text of the regulation. The other is domestic implementation: if Frontex asks a Hungarian authority to issue a removal order, the order should come with a written statement of reasons, the possibility of judicial review and annual public statistics. The automated filtering tools used by Frontex should be included in the algorithm-transparency register (D11). Restrictions on freedom of expression would thus take place on a legal basis, verifiably and proportionately, as Article 10 of the ECHR requires. MIAK’s model for handling disinformation, D8, likewise provides context rather than deleting.

The common principle of the three proposals is that more effective border policing and the rule-of-law brake are not opponents. The surveillance exceptionalism described by Zuboff can be avoided if the subject-matter scope, logging and revocability of the new powers are laid down at the time of adoption (see 6.4.3), and not after a later scandal.

Part IV — Expected impacts and risks

Dimension Expected impact Risk
Public security Greater EU capacity at the external border, a rapid-reaction force deployable within 24 hours in a crisis The secondment obligation of the reserve may further reduce domestic police numbers
Fundamental rights If the suspension power is retained, the lawfulness of operations remains verifiable If the final text narrows monitoring, violations will come to light later, before the courts, at higher cost
Budget EU funds could replace domestic border-policing expenditure Without settling the asylum fine, Frontex support in Hungary will not restart
Digital public sphere Faster removal of smuggling advertisements If worded broadly, content from the migration debate could also be flagged, which deters expression of opinion

The main dilemma lies between speed and verifiability. Citing the lessons of the Ceuta crisis, the Commission wants faster reaction, and this is a legitimate goal. Proposals 3.1 and 3.3 tip to the risk side if, in the negotiations, the safeguards become the “price” of capacity and Hungary represents only one side. Proposal 3.2 works if the impact assessment is based on real staffing and cost data; with estimated, unverifiable figures it would only weaken the negotiating position. Narrowing social media monitoring is effective if the concept of illegal content is laid down by the regulation itself, and not by the agency’s internal rules.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth tracking? (proposed KPIs)

MIAK proposes tracking the following key performance indicators (KPIs):

  • 6 months: whether a public summary of the Hungarian Council position has been published, and whether it includes the preservation of the suspension power; whether the impact assessment on Hungary’s staff contribution to the reserve has been completed.
  • 12 months: whether the obligation to suspend or terminate in the event of serious violations is retained in the Council general approach and then in the text of the trilogue, and whether the subject-matter scope of online monitoring is narrow.
  • 24 months: whether Frontex land support has restarted on Hungary’s southern border; whether border-policing staffing and return data are published quarterly.
  • From the application of the regulation: according to Frontex’s annual flagging report, how many items of content it flagged, how many of these were removed, and how many requests for legal remedy were lodged against Hungarian removal orders.

5.2 Summary

MIAK asks the Government not to treat the Frontex reform as a “yes or no” question. It should support the capacity, and from the start of the Council negotiations insist on the suspension power, independent fundamental-rights monitoring and a narrow online mandate. It should present the domestic staffing burden of the reserve in advance, in a public calculation. The proposal primarily concerns the foundational values of accountability and transparency. The new powers of an EU agency are only accountable if the suspension brake, the log of flags and legal remedy are part of the rule. And Hungarian citizens can only judge what the government commits to on their behalf at the border and on the internet if staffing and cost data are public.

Part VI — Justifications and further sources

6.1 Press framing by spectrum

International press. Politico covered the topic in two articles. The first, before the presentation, described the three pillars of the mandate; the second focused on the freedom-of-expression risk of social media monitoring. Brando Benifei, an Italian Social Democrat MEP, told the paper that removing smuggling advertisements is legitimate, but that a broad monitoring mandate would copy the online tracking practice of the American immigration authority, ICE. Right-wing Piotr Müller and Fabrice Leggeri of the French National Rally, a former Frontex director, also criticised the mandate, while Regina Doherty and Andreas Schwab of the European People’s Party signalled cautious support. The framing is therefore not divided along the usual left–right fault line. EUobserver focused on the discrepancy between the press conference and the text, that is, on the quiet narrowing of the safeguards. Balkan Insight conveyed the Commission narrative: the lessons of the Ceuta crisis and voter concern lie behind the tightening.

Left-liberal and public-affairs band. Telex presented the proposal factually and highlighted the Commission’s figures (border crossings halved, a return rate above 30 per cent). Another Telex article linked the EU migration debate and the asylum fine to the topic through the committee report of State Secretary András Bíró-Nagy. HVG’s Eurologus blog was the only domestic source that discussed Frontex’s 2021 withdrawal from Hungary and the fine as the Hungarian context of the reform. 24.hu picked up Politico’s pre-presentation report.

Pro-government/conservative band. The press monitor found no separate article on the Frontex proposal at Magyar Nemzet. In its article on the migration pact, the paper used the frame that the government is forced to implement the pact, and linked this to the Budapest visit of the European Parliament’s rule-of-law delegation. In the monitored conservative sources, the expansion of deportation capacity did not appear as a separate topic in this period.

6.2 Facts and data

Data Value Source
Length of the proposal 275 pages EUobserver, 28 October 2026
Targeted total headcount (gradually, by 2041) 30,000: 6,000 own staff + 17,000-strong reserve + 7,000 seconded HVG Eurologus, 27 October 2026
Size of the standing corps approx. 7,800 (early 2026), target 10,000 (2027) Politico, 26 October 2026
Frontex budget, 2028–2034 EUR 11.8 billion (2021–2027: approx. EUR 6 billion) HVG Eurologus, 27 October 2026
Return rate in the EU 32–33% (Commissioner Brunner); “above 30%” (Commission) Balkan Insight; Telex, 27 October 2026
Irregular border crossings fell by more than half in two years European Commission (Telex, 27 October 2026)
Frontex-supported deportations cancelled because of the Middle East war approx. 5,500 EUobserver
Rapid-reaction force deployment within 24 hours, for up to one month, by decision of the Executive Director HVG Eurologus
Submission of member-state return plans annually by 1 November HVG Eurologus
Asylum coercive fine EUR 1 million a day since 2024, over EUR 1 billion in total Telex, 27 October 2026

Differing figures have appeared on the size of the July Ceuta crisis: Balkan Insight wrote of 70–80 thousand people crossing, Telex of several thousand people within a few hours. The blog bases no argument on either figure. The wording “17,000 deportation officers” (EUobserver) and “17,000-strong European Border and Return Reserve” (HVG) refer to the same staff. According to HVG, this is a reserve deployable for both border surveillance and return tasks, so the blog uses this more precise designation.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Public security and law enforcement (programme points) — border-policing staffing, police accountability (KB6), the prohibition of person-based profiling (KB5) and the public criminal and law-enforcement data platform (KB1);
  • Justice (programme points and background material) — legislative impact assessment (I3), access to legal remedy and the implementation of the EU court judgment;
  • Digitalisation and AI regulation (programme points) — the algorithm-transparency register (D11) and handling disinformation without deletion (D8);
  • Demography (programme points) — separating legal labour migration from irregular migration (DM3), so that the deportation debate does not blur the two.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 European Union: Digital Services Act (DSA)

Under Article 22 of the DSA, online platforms are obliged to handle notices from trusted flaggers with priority and without undue delay. The status is awarded, upon application, by the digital services coordinator of the member state in which the applicant is established. Its conditions are expertise in detecting illegal content, independence from the platforms, and diligent, accurate and objective operation. The flagger publishes a detailed public report annually on its notices and on the procedures ensuring its independence. If a platform finds that the flagger has submitted a significant number of imprecise or unsubstantiated notices, it informs the coordinator, which revokes the status if the conditions are no longer met. Two conclusions follow from this for the Frontex reform. First, because of the Warsaw seat, awarding and revoking the status would presumably be a decision of the Polish rather than the Hungarian authority, so Hungarian influence is exercised through the text of the regulation and the domestic implementing rules. Second, the DSA already contains a transparency tool, the annual public report. Proposal 3.3 supplements this with statistics on and legal remedy against Hungarian removal orders.

📖 Source: Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council on a Single Market for Digital Services (DSA), Article 22

6.4.2 Council of Europe: European Convention on Human Rights

Article 10 of the Convention protects freedom of expression, and permits restrictions only if they are prescribed by law and necessary in a democratic society, among other things in the interests of national security, public safety or the prevention of crime. According to the text of the Convention, restrictions must be “prescribed by law and … necessary in a democratic society”. Article 13 requires an effective remedy even if the violation was committed by persons acting in an official capacity. Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 lays down in a single sentence: “Collective expulsion of aliens is prohibited.” In the case of the Frontex reform, these three rules provide the benchmark. Social media monitoring is compatible with Article 10 only if the regulation itself defines the scope of illegal content. Returns between third countries avoid the prohibition of collective expulsion only with an individual, verifiable assessment. And removal orders require a genuine remedy under Article 13.

📖 Source: Council of Europe: European Convention on Human Rights (1950), Articles 10 and 13; Protocol No. 4, Article 4

6.4.3 Shoshana Zuboff: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

One chapter of Zuboff’s book shows how “surveillance exceptionalism” emerged in the United States after 11 September 2001. After the terrorist attacks, the security perspective overrode the legislative debate on privacy protection within a few months. State bodies were given incentives to share information and link databases, and the data protection regulation already in preparation was dropped from the agenda. The practices adopted with reference to the state of exception then became permanent and intertwined with the surveillance technologies of the private sector (paraphrase). The justification of the Frontex proposal likewise refers to a crisis: the mass border crossing at Ceuta and online disinformation. According to Zuboff’s lesson, the safeguards must therefore be laid down not afterwards but at the same time as the mandate: a subject-matter limit, logging, a review date. Proposal 3.3 follows this logic.

📖 Source: Shoshana Zuboff: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019)

6.5 International comparison

Social media monitoring has a precedent at Frontex. According to Politico, in 2019 the agency withdrew a tender for monitoring with similar powers because of privacy criticism. The current proposal would rebuild this function with an express legal mandate, which is more transparent but also more permanent. The American comparison was brought up by MEP Benifei: the online tracking practice of the immigration authority (ICE) is the subject of an ongoing freedom-of-expression and data protection debate in the United States. Meanwhile, the direction of EU deportation policy is clear: according to Politico, in June the leaders of 19 member states asked for EU support for return hubs outside the Union, and the new return regulation entered into force on 16 October. Frontex would be its implementing institution.

Frontex’s own history also shows why the internal brake matters. Fabrice Leggeri, who is now criticising the new powers, resigned as head of the agency in 2022, after an investigation by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) also touched on the handling of pushback cases. And Frontex’s 2021 withdrawal from Hungary shows that suspension has a real consequence: a member state loses operational EU support until it restores compliance with the law.

Public security and law enforcement

  • KB1 — Criminal-data platform
  • KB5 — Predictive policing with an ethical framework
  • KB6 — Police ethics code and accountability

Justice

  • I3 — Legislative impact assessment

Digitalisation and AI regulation

  • D8 — Disinformation-detecting AI system
  • D11 — Algorithm-transparency register

Demography

  • DM3 — Management of labour-market migration

Foreign policy

  • KP17 — Issue-based coalition-building in the EU

Proposed new programme point: Domestic accountability minimum for EU law-enforcement agencies (staff contribution, removal orders, legal remedy) — for the Public security and law enforcement area.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK foreign press monitor, 29 October 2026 — topic 2; related: foreign press monitor of 27 October 2026 and Hungarian press monitor of 28 October 2026):

Knowledge-base references (literature):

  • 📖 European Parliament and Council: Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 on digital services (DSA)
  • 📖 Council of Europe: European Convention on Human Rights (1950)
  • 📖 Shoshana Zuboff: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019)

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Public security and law enforcement (programme points; programme point ID: KB1, KB5, KB6)
  • MIAK policy area: Justice (background material; programme point ID: I3)
  • MIAK policy area: Digitalisation and AI regulation (programme points; programme point ID: D8, D11)
  • MIAK policy area: Demography (programme points; programme point ID: DM3)
  • MIAK policy area: Foreign policy (programme points; programme point ID: KP17)
  • MIAK foreign press monitor, 29 October 2026 — topic 2, score: 84/100
  • MIAK foreign press monitor, 27 October 2026 — topic 5, score: 68/100
  • MIAK press monitor, 28 October 2026 — topic 7, score: 66/100

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