Frontex’s forced returns, prepare recommendation for authorities, and monitor their realisation and transparency of operations. Despite monitoring provided by Frontex and its pool of monitors, Human Rights Ombudsmen or NPMs are, through their powers, obliged to protect and promote human rights, operate independently, transparently and publicly, and encourage responsibility in public administration. To this end, the Charter of Nafplion Group was adopted to determine in more detail the functioning of human rights ombudsman institutions or NPMs which will join this project while supported by the Council of Europe. The main objective of establishing the Nafplion Group is to establish a mechanism to ensure independent external monitoring of Frontex operations regarding forced returns, including the formation of special recommendations for authorities executing forced returns, monitoring the implementation of these recommendations and contribute to the transparent execution of return procedures. 1.4 REALISATION OF NPM RECOMMENDATIONS Between 8 and 9 October 2019, Deputy Šelih attended the first meeting of the Nafplion Group in Rome, Italy. Assisted by the Council of Europe, the meeting was organised by the Italian NPM (Garante Nazionale dei Diritti delle Persone Detenute e private della Libertà Personale). It was attended by the representatives of human rights ombudsman institutions or NPMs from Albania, Austria, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the Council of Europe and other organisations. The participants discussed their work and future work plans. They selected the office coordinator who will ensure its operations while assisted by two additional group members. The function of the coordinator was entrusted to the Greek Ombudsman and the selected assistants were the Italian and Slovenian NPMs. Furthermore, the participants also talked about the functioning of the pool that monitors forced returns within Frontex and discussed the proposal for reimbursement of costs for NPMs whose staff participates in this Frontex pool. The participants also familiarised themselves with the Italian research on good practice of monitoring forced returns in the European Union. 21