EUCO

The recovery fund and long-term EU budget agreed today do not match the urgency of our current situation and the challenges ahead, said Oxfam.

EU plans for ‘controlled centers’ for asylum seekers mean more innocent people – including children – will be forced to live in de-facto detention centers, Oxfam said today.

European leaders at the EU summit in Brussels have failed to agree on reforms to the common European asylum system. Instead, they try to respond to internal rows by reducing the space for asylum seekers even further, and want to offload their responsibilities to countries outside the EU. Oxfam argues that European agreements on migration are welcome, but they should not have a negative impact on the lives of refugees and migrants.

As EU heads of state and government meet today in Brussels to discuss Europe’s response to migration, Oxfam says the EU must address the human rights abuses suffered by refugees and migrants within and at Europe’s borders, instead of obsessively focusing on stopping people arriving.

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.

EU leaders are sticking to the EU-Turkey deal, no matter what this means for the people in need, Oxfam said in reaction to discussions of EU leaders meeting in Brussels today.