Lieutenant General Hans Leijtens, currently the commander of the Dutch gendarmerie force, was on Tuesday appointed as the new chief of EU's border control agency Frontex, Croartia's state news platform Hina reported, citing an announcement on Frontex's website.

The management board of Frontex voted in a secret ballot on the three candidates shortlisted by the European Commission, taking into account the opinion of the European Parliament, issued following hearings of the candidates by the Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE).

The board, based at Frontex headquarters in Warsaw, decided to appoint Leijtens, for a term of five years, to replace Fabrice Leggeri who resigned following a highly critical report by OLAF, the EU’s Anti-Fraud Office which looked into violent incidents against incoming migrants on the external borders of the EU.

The other two shortlisted nominees were Terezija Gras, an official from the Croatian Interior Ministry, and Aija Kalnaja from Latvia, who previously served as interim director of the agency.