COMPETENCE OF THE OMBUDSMAN OVER THE EXTERNAL MONITORING OF FORCED RETURNS Organisation, funding and networking During 2017, the administrative delays in the management were solved, having previously created a gap in funding for the amounts that could have been made available from the now unified European Fund for Asylum, Migration and Integration (AMIF) to the external monitoring of returns, as is foreseen by the JMD that governs the organisation of the monitoring mandate. After a call for proposals that was published in November 2016 by the European and Development Programmes Division of the Ministry of the Interior-Section Protection of the Citizen, the Ombudsman submitted a relevant project proposal together with the European Programmes Implementation Service of the Hellenic Parliament. In this way, the problem of funding for the action (a gap existing from 1.7.2015) was solved on 13.2.2017 with funding for two years, until the end of 2018. This significantly facilitated the operation of the special mandate of the Independent Authority. Consequently in 2017, in comparison with the previous year, the Ombudsman doubled the number of investigations by its staff in pre-removal centres, as well with the monitors’ participation in land return operations and in readmissions to Turkey. The collaboration of the Ombudsman with international organisations and with counterpart institutions on issues of exercising external monitoring continued unabated in 2017. Through this networking, the active participation of the Ombudsman continued as a constituent member of the European programme: Forced Return Monitoring (FReM)–II in the context of the European Return Fund-Community Actions of the European Commission. The International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) is the agent of the programme FReM-II. This programme is carried out with the support of the Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union (FRA) and FRONTEX. National mechanisms also participate since they have undertaken responsibility for the external monitoring of forced return operations in various member states, the aim being to develop common standards and refine methodological tools for external monitoring. On 17th and 18th October 2017, the Ombudsman hosted a meeting of the European programme FReM-II for the external monitoring of forced return operations in Athens.2 Over the course of these two days, the Ombudsman highlighted the particular importance of the presence of human rights monitors in the return operations for third country nationals. He referred to issues concerning independent operations and accountability, 2 https://www.synigoros.gr/?i=stp.en.news.462578 12