On Tuesday, Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria announced the launch of the Eastern Mediterranean Migration Route Initiative (EMMI). They called upon the EU to make further resources available to countries along the route and to implement a relocation mechanism. The joint...
On October 7 EU signed an agreement on border cooperation with Montenegro allowing the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) to carry out joint operations and deploy teams in the country. It is the second signed status agreement with a non-EU country...
On October 4 the Italian government signed a decree establishing a list of countries designated as “safe countries of origin”. The concept was introduced for the first time in the Italian asylum procedure following the 2018 legislative reform and its implementation...
The European Court of Human Rights ruled this week that refusing a journalist access to report on living conditions in a reception centre for asylum seekers is a violation of freedom of expression. In this case, a journalist requested access to Debrecen Reception...
In a valedictory speech today, outgoing EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Federica Mogherini, summarised the achievements of her five years in the job. It is fair to acknowledge her successes: a continuation and defence of multilateralism despite the backlash...
The French Constitutional Court ruled on 4 October 2019 that the administrative court is competent to assess the legality of a decision to maintain a person in administrative detention if, based on a motivated and written decision, the Prefect considers that the...
Six years after a shipwreck off Lampedusa cost the lives of 368 people, 2019 sees the death toll of people trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean climb over 1000. The Malta proposal on disembarkation and relocations will be discussed among EU Member states next...
A serious incident reported by independent observers during a Frontex facilitated deportation flight from Germany to Afghanistan in August 2018 was not included in the internal report from the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). The modest number of incidents...
As of August 2019, the Spanish government started to apply the “border procedure” for asylum applications in its enclaves at the Spanish-Moroccan border. The new practice can undermine access to asylum procedures and comes amid reports of further push-backs also...
The German unit of the humanitarian organisation Doctors of the World (MDM) decided to stop providing support in the AnKER centre in Manching/Ingolstadt as of the end of October 2019 because of the poor living and reception conditions in the facility. A lack of...
