EU Project Presented at a Conference Neither lobby meeting nor secret

In recent days, some media and politically interested groups have asked the TU Braunschweig for a statement in the context of the so-called Frontex “Files”.* Here is our statement:

Contrary to the allegations, at no time did a representative of the TU Braunschweig take part in a secret meeting or lobby event. The TU Braunschweig does not currently cooperate, nor has it cooperated in the past, with Frontex.

The EU requires an exchange between its research projects and potential users, especially users from within its own authorities and institutions. So, specifically, when a project receives funding under the Horizon 2020 research framework programme, the EU expects the state of the research to be presented to other institutions of the Union and its member countries. Therefore, a project in which the Microwave Department of the Institute of Radio Frequency Technology was involved has been presented by Professor Jörg Schöbel at a meeting in Warsaw in 2019.

The EU project, which has now been completed, was about detecting small aircraft and drones used to transport drugs from North Africa to Portugal and Spain. All the information is transparently documented here: https://alfa-h2020.eu/blog. The conference itself is also documented here on the project pages: https://alfa-h2020.eu/blog/83-alfa-at-the-frontex-workshop

The conference was held for the exchange of information (“dissemination”). There were no further meetings.

* Following a comment from a reader, we have decided to replace the wording “to instrumentalise against the European organisation Frontex” that was initially used here, as it could be misunderstood. We position ourselves neither against nor for Frontex.