Brussels – While the European Union’s political leadership for internal security has recently changed, the day‑to‑day operations of the Commission’s Directorate‑General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME) remain in the hands of a long‑standing civil servant. Beate Gminder has been serving as the acting Director‑General since the start of the year and, as of 1 December 2024, continues in the post without a permanent appointment.
DG HOME oversees a broad agenda that affects anyone travelling across the EU’s internal borders. Gminder is supported by two deputies: Johannes Luchner, responsible for “horizontal affairs and migration,” and Olivier Onidi, who heads the “Schengen & security” portfolio and also serves as the EU Counter‑Terrorism Co‑ordinator. The dual remit of Onidi—combining open‑border management with counter‑terrorism—highlights Brussels’ view that these issues are intertwined rather than separate.
The political head of the directorate is the newly appointed Commissioner for Home Affairs, Magnus Brunner, who took office following the 2024 European elections under the second von der Leyen Commission. Brunner sets the strategic direction, while Gminder and her team are tasked with turning those policies into practice.
DG HOME’s mandate rests on three core pillars. The first is to safeguard the Schengen Area, a zone of 26 European states where internal border checks have been abolished. Maintaining the security of this free‑movement space—stretching from Portugal to Poland and from Greece to Norway—is described as a “strategic asset and a vulnerability.” The directorate’s role is to prevent weaknesses in one member state from becoming crises for the whole bloc, through coordination of border guards, intelligence sharing and joint risk assessments.
The second pillar concerns the development of a common EU migration and asylum framework. The directorate’s latest report acknowledges the difficulty of reconciling the rights of asylum seekers and migrants with the need to protect the integrity of the Schengen zone.
Officials describe this balance as a “political knife fight” that has already led to government upheavals in several member states. The third pillar focuses on external dialogue. DG HOME seeks to manage migration before it reaches EU borders by negotiating agreements with origin and transit countries, deploying funding, diplomatic pressure and other tools.
These external partnerships are framed as essential to “push migration management outward” and reduce pressure on internal frontiers. All three pillars operate within the EU’s broader “area of freedom, security and justice” (AFSJ), the legal‑political framework that links internal security policies across the Union.
The directorate works closely with member states, EU agencies such as Frontex and Europol, and international organisations, underscoring that no single entity controls the migration portfolio. In practice, Gminder, Luchner and Onidi draft EU‑wide policies, which Brunner must then present to the European Parliament and national governments for approval. The effectiveness of the system depends on the ability of these four officials to keep the machinery running amid shifting political dynamics.
