Frontex as Agency: More of the Same?

Building on the notion of ‘agencies’ as non-majoritarian instruments to professionalize (or ‘depoliticisize’) EU policy-making, this article examines whether the introduction of Frontex as an agency instrument in 2004 implied a major change in the management of the EU's border control compared to the earlier network. Even though formal evaluations have acknowledged the positive achievements of Frontex, this article questions whether those assessments actually helps us to understand better the added value of Frontex as agency. To do so, the article draws from a legitimacy-based model to assess the added value of the agency. Input and output legitimacy are being assessed through a number of accountability mechanisms. The model is applied to predecessor of Frontex (SCIFA + /PCU) and to Frontex. We conclude that the choice for the agency instrument was not sufficiently argued and that the design of Frontex hardly offers the advantages of the agency structure.