ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, is strongly criticizing Greece over its repeated pushbacks of migrants, urging the EU to bring serious disciplinary proceedings against Athens.

The agency’s Fundamental Rights Officer, Jonas Grimheden, told German daily Welt that the European Commission must open infringement proceedings against the Greek government.

“There must be some kind of punishment. The Commission itself is capable of initiating infringement proceedings against a member state.”

Grimheden shut down the prospect of the Frontex mission in Greece being suspended, insisting that their presence is necessary to oversee the actions of Greek border forces.

“If Frontex were to leave Greece, there would no longer be any way to learn how the authorities are dealing with arriving migrants. The agency ensures monitoring and transparency,” he said.

Accoring to the European Commission's definition, migrant pushbacks entail migrants "being summarily forced back to the country from where they attempted to cross or have crossed an international borderwithout access to international protection or asylum procedures."

In January, the European Court of Human Rights said it found Greece guilty of conducting “systematic” pushbacks of migrants, who mostly arrive in the country from Turkey.

Greece has repeatedly denied it had carried out the policy of pushbacks.

Thousands of migrants illegally try to cross the deadly Aegean Sea every year in search of a better life in Europe and the United Kingdom, with a large number of them coming from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the Kurdish areas of Syria, Iran, and Turkey.

According to data from Lutka, or the Summit Foundation for Refugees and Displaced Affairs, around 750,000 Iraqis have migrated out of the country since 2015, a year after ISIS swept across large swathes of the country.

Greece has repeatedly been accused by migrants and humanitarian organizations of harshly approaching arriving migrant boats, pushing many of them back to the Turkish waters.

Pushing back migrants who enter the European Union's territorial waters is illegal, according to the bloc's regulations and international laws.

In May 2023, the European Union accused Greece of human rights abuses at the EU-funded camps on the Greek islands, including allegations of sexual harassment and violence against children.

Athens says it has seen a 25 percent rise in the number of migrants in 2024, compared with the previous year.