EU

While EU governments are meeting in Tallinn today to approve plans for more cooperation with Libya in order to stop people from entering Europe, Oxfam and its partners are hearing new accounts of murder, torture and other horrific abuses being suffered by refugees and other people who have fled through Libya - a place they call “hell”.

The EU's partnership approach for working with African countries on managing migration has to date failed to provide safe and regular channels for migration or offer long-term solutions that improve the lives of people on the move.

A touring exhibition by Oxfam and Amnesty International promoting solidarity with refugees and other migrants has received a prestigious European Excellence Award in Brussels today. The “Museum without a Home”, which showcases items donated by Greeks to migrants, was awarded the best European NGO campaign in 2016.

Plans for next year's EU budget mean that not the actual needs of people in developing countries will be addressed, but money will be spent on border security to stop migration, Oxfam deplores.

EU governments have today furthered the recent trend of using development aid to advance their own short-sighted interests. They have adopted a new framework for the European Union’s development policy that neither listens to EU citizens nor focuses on eradicating poverty.

Already more than 1,000 migrants have been reported dead or missing in 2017 while trying to cross the Mediterranean. EU leaders must expand safe and regular routes so migrants are not forced to risk their lives in search of safety and dignity, Oxfam said in response.

Violence, brutality and unlawful treatment by authorities on the Western Balkan route are a frequent occurrence, claim refugees and other migrants in a new NGO report revealed today.

It is shameful to see European banks again involved in a major global money laundering scandal. 

One year after the EU-Turkey deal was struck, Greece has become the testing ground for the EU's migration policies. Oxfam, IRC and NRC have analysed the situation in a joint report which documents the immense human suffering as well as the erosion of basic human rights and the right to asylum.

EU leaders must live up to their commitments to European values in responding to migration and stop copying xenophobic populist recipes, more than 170 NGOs said today in a joint statement.