Short bio
Mr. Grigorios Apostolou served in the Hellenic Police for 30 years, retiring in 2012 as Brigadier General. During his times in the Police, he has been serving in a range of Units dealing with general police matters, investigation of crimes of serious violence, issues of intelligence, international and European affairs in the field of management of external border and migration. He has been working on issues of irregular migration and border management since 1995. In this field, he represented Greece in several fora for a number of years. He was the Chairman of the CIREFI Working Group during the Greek Presidency of the EU in 2003, and participated in other working groups and committees such as SCIFA, HLWG, SCHEVAL, FRONTIERS, etc.
He joined Frontex upon its start in October 2005, in the Operations Unit / Land Border Sector. He worked there organizing and implementing joint operations in different Member-States, as the project manager or member of project teams; he assigned as responsible for the horizontal coordination of the operational activities coordinated by Frontex at the external land borders of the Member States.
He was nominated as the Frontex Coordinating Officer for the first operation RABITS, which took place in Greece between November 2010 and March 2011. In August 2011 he was appointed as the Head of the Frontex Operational Office in Piraeus, Greece. Since 2018 he is appointed as the Head of the Frontex Liaison Office posted in Piraeus, responsible for Greece and Cyprus.
Intervention 30/05/2023, RISE-SD 2023 Plenary session, 09.00-12.00, Delphi Amphitheater
“Task and role of the European Border Guard Agency – Frontex – in the field of Research and Innovation”