The European Commission cannot instruct the EU's border agency Frontex and its executive director, Fabrice Leggeri.
The point was driven home repeatedly by EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson on Thursday (4 March).
"It is an independent body," she told over a dozen MEPs probing the Warsaw-based agency.
Instead, Johansson said she has only political oversight.
"I am not in a position to give instructions or guidance to the agency or to the executive director," s...
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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.