FRA: Legal avenues for refugees to enter the EU would reduce deaths at sea and reliance on smugglers

13th March 2015 | News

13 March 2015 The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) has called on the EU and its Member States to offer more possibilities for persons in need of international protection to arrive in the EU legally, and in safety, in order to reduce lives lost at sea as well as...

European Commission and Member States discuss measures to enforce fingerprinting of asylum seekers

13th March 2015 | News

13 March 2015 Statewatch revealed this week that the European Commission and Member States are discussing “best practices” to ensure that the fingerprints of asylum seekers and irregular migrants are taken and recorded in the Eurodac database. This database enables...

ECRE report: Using the Charter of Fundamental Rights to improve reception and detention standards

13th March 2015 | News

13 March 2015 A new ECRE report provides guidance to Member States and asylum practitioners on how the provisions of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights can be used to ensure a more rights based implementation of the standards contained in the Directive regulating...

Switzerland to facilitate entry of 3,000 people fleeing Syria over the next three years

12th March 2015 | News

12 March 2015 Switzerland has announced it will facilitate the entry, and accord protection, to 3,000 persons who have fled Syria. Over a period of three years, 2,000 resettlement places will be allocated to vulnerable people from Syria and 1,000 humanitarian visas...

Shipping community urges EU governments to take action to prevent more deaths in the Mediterranean

6th March 2015 | News

6 March 2015 The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) has called on EU Member States to engage more on search and rescue in the Mediterranean and to provide legal and safe channels for migrants and refugees to reach Europe. Ahead of an inter-agency high-level...

European Commission launches work on new migration agenda

6th March 2015 | News

6 March 2015 On 4 March, the European Commission announced plans for a new ‘European Agenda on Migration’. The College of Commissioners identified four main priority areas: “fighting irregular migration and human trafficking more robustly”; “securing Europe’s external...

NGOs raise alarms over new plans against migrants and refugees in Hungary

6th March 2015 | News

6 March 2015 Hungary’s government is planning to introduce measures to reduce the number of asylum seekers in the country, which experts fear, will go against EU law. According to the ECRE member organisation the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC), the plans publicly...

NOAS: Detention of family with children violates Norwegian and international law

6th March 2015 | News

6 March 2015 Norway’s current legislation and practice of detaining families with children violates the Norwegian Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights, the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. That...

UK MPs: migrants & asylum seekers should be detained as a last resort and for a maximum of 28 days

6th March 2015 | News

6 March 2015 An inquiry by an all-party parliamentary group into the use of immigration detention in the UK has found that the detention system is “expensive, ineffective and unjust”. The inquiry highlights that too many people are detained and for disproportionate...

Asylum can be granted to military deserters who provide logistical support in conflicts says CJEU

27th February 2015 | News

27 February 2015 The Court of Justice of the European (CJEU) has held that members of the military participating indirectly in a conflict can be granted asylum for desertion. Whilst, past commission of war crimes does not have to occur for protection to be applicable,...