Matthias Monroy

Ukraine wants to deploy EU border police on its sovereign territory – likely due to staff shortages at its border. Brussels and Kyiv are to begin negotiations urgently. Frontex, the Commission and the German interior ministry are keeping details secret.

The European Union has been cooperating with Ukraine on border issues since 2007. The basis is a so-called working arrangement between the EU border agency Frontex, founded three years earlier, and Ukraine’s state border guard. Such arrangements, which Frontex maintains with dozens of states – including the United Kingdom in Europe – permit training and advice for border authorities. Operational deployments or the exchange of personal data are not covered.

In addition, the civilian EU Advisory Mission Ukraine (EUAM) has been supporting reforms in the security sector – including border authorities – since 2014. Two years after the start of the Ukraine war, cooperation was expanded in February 2024 through a working arrangement between Frontex and EUAM Ukraine. This concerns the prevention of irregular migration at the eastern external borders – a core task of the EU agency with its headquarters in Warsaw. The deployment of a Frontex liaison officer to Moldova, which has already taken place, is intended to facilitate this cooperation.

Now the EU wants to significantly deepen joint migration control with Ukraine through a so-called status agreement: it would be an international treaty and would permit operational Frontex missions on Ukrainian sovereign territory. As a candidate country for accession and the EU’s second-largest direct neighbour, Ukraine has already officially requested such an agreement several times and, following a decree by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in October 2024, appointed a negotiating team. In July this year, Ukrainian interior minister Ihor Klymenko urged the EU Commission in a letter to begin negotiations urgently.

Such a status agreement would enable joint operations typical of Frontex in Ukraine. European personnel would have sovereign powers, but would act under Ukrainian command. All deployments would be carried out according to a detailed operational plan – which Frontex usually keeps secret.

Such operational deployments are already established in five Western Balkan states and in Moldova as partner countries. Possible missions include support with border surveillance or border controls as well as combating cross-border crime. Frontex’s tasks also include preventing the illegal transport of firearms and ammunition – European authorities have been warning of this scenario, that weapons delivered to Ukraine could be smuggled back into the EU, since Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

However, the detection and defence against drones would also be conceivable for deployments in Ukraine: Frontex has been researching this for years and has held two “competitions” this year alone. The agency also wants to obtain an official mandate for drone defence in a new regulation. The deployment of a unit that Frontex is building up for an “instrumentalisation of migration” can also be sent on the occasion of international summits or sporting events.

Status agreements for Frontex operations in a non-EU state are not negotiated by the agency itself, but by the European Commission in Brussels. To do this, it requires a mandate from the Council – that is, from the 27 member states. According to “nd” information, this is already being discussed in the relevant Council working groups, and the German government has also been asked for its opinion. When asked, however, the German Federal Ministry of the Interior – which is responsible for cooperation with Frontex – declined to comment.

Experience shows that negotiations for status agreements take one to two years – but in Moldova’s case, the conclusion was reached in just a few months. After the outbreak of the Ukraine war, the Frontex mission was to start in 2022 by fast-track procedure at the express request of the government in Chișinău. Due to the war and the “frozen conflict” with Russian troops in Transnistria, Moldova is currently considered Frontex’s most delicate mandate.

A conclusion of negotiations with Ukraine would therefore be possible as early as spring or summer 2026 following the Moldova model. However, concrete deployments would probably not be envisaged until after the end of the war. Even then, however, these would likely take place in a highly militarised environment. The military support of the Ukrainian government is also one of the hidden purposes of the deployment: the Frontex troops could compensate for the acute staff shortage in the border police.

Individual EU member states can refuse to send their personnel to Ukraine for security reasons – or withdraw entirely from the agreement with Kyiv by means of an opt-out. The unwilling EU countries could then only engage on the Polish side of the border with Ukraine. However, such a bilateral deployment has so far failed due to lack of consent from the government in Warsaw, which, because of other disputes with Brussels, also did not want to agree to a Frontex deployment on the border with Belarus.

Those responsible for the plans are also keeping a low profile within the EU. When asked about its position on a status agreement with Ukraine, Frontex, after several reminders, referred laconically to the Commission: “Frontex is not part of the negotiating team, and the status agreement is being negotiated between the EU and Ukrainian authorities. Please direct any questions about the Status Agreement to the European Commission”. The agreement was also possibly a topic at a recent meeting of Frontex with all countries with which a status agreement already exists. The border agency did not respond to this either.

The EU Commission, too – also despite several reminders and the promise of a response – has obviously decided not to comment at all to “nd” on this sensitive question.

“Frontex’s systematic violations of fundamental rights certainly do not qualify it for deployment in Ukraine,” says Jan Köstering, a Left Party member of the German Bundestag, about the EU’s plans. For “peacekeeping”, UN peacekeeping troops or OSCE officials should “play a role in a post-war Ukraine” instead of Frontex.

Published in German in „nd“.

Image: The Frontex operation in Moldova, which began in 2022, could serve as a blueprint for the swift conclusion of an agreement with Ukraine (Ion Strungaru/ Frontex/ Facebook).