EU migration

Tomorrow, European migration ministers are set to meet to discuss a proposal to erode EU asylum standards. The so-called Instrumentalisation Regulation allows European countries to ignore EU asylum law if they think that non-EU countries or others are using migration to put pressure on Europe.  

Tomorrow, EU migration ministers will meet at an emergency meeting to discuss the latest plan from the European Commission to reduce the number of persons entering Europe.

Ahead of European interior ministers meeting in Brussels today to discuss progress on EU migration and asylum policy, Oxfam denounces plans to make EU countries commit to a “voluntary, simple and predictable solidarity mechanism”.

Twenty-three NGOs are jointly urging the EU and European countries to work together to put into action their refugee response commitments in light of the crisis in Ukraine. This call comes ahead of EU justice and home affairs ministers meeting today to discuss the EU’s support for people fleeing the crisis in Ukraine.

New report from the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR) and Oxfam sheds light on the inside of the new 43-million-euro migration center on the Greek island of Samos. The report comes ahead of the 6-year anniversary of the EU-Turkey deal, and in the midst of already more than a million people fleeing conflict in Ukraine to seek asylum in EU countries. If ever there was a time to learn from the failures made in Greece, it is now.

Greece is turning more and more to the practice of administrative detention to manage people who arrive in Greece to claim asylum. This is according to the new report, Detention as the Default: How Greece, with the support of the EU, is generalizing administrative detention of migrants, from the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR) and Oxfam. The report found an excessive use of administrative detention with nearly 3,000 migrants in detention as of June 2021.

Today, EU migration ministers meet to discuss the Commission’s proposal to activate the temporary protection directive for people fleeing the crisis in Ukraine. If activated, the directive would allow those fleeing from Ukraine, access to a residence permit for up to three years along with access to education and employment in any EU country.

Unfair, incoherent and duplicit EU trade policies in North Africa have contributed to job losses, brain drains and overwhelmingly negative impacts on those who can least afford it, an Oxfam analysis released today has found.

The European Commission has recently proposed in its new Pact for Migration and Asylum that each member state will have to establish screening centres to monitor human rights violations. But this proposal is not enough, and four steps are needed to make it effective in achieving its aim to stop human rights violations at the border.

For too long the EU’s migration policies have ignored the priorities of the countries it partners with for the sake of its own border security and domestic priorities. These have permeated the domestic migration and asylum policies of the Maghreb countries it supports, at the cost of people’s interests.