International law imposes an obligation to render assistance to persons and ships in distress at sea, which must be provided regardless of the persons’ nationality or status or the circumstances in which they are found. Continue reading
This year, 27 January, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marks the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. Continue reading
Around 90 % of those who cross the external European Union (EU) borders illegally do so with the assistance of migrant smugglers. Continue reading
In September 2020, the European Commission proposed a new pact on asylum and migration. Continue reading
Faced with a persistent international terrorist threat, the European Union (EU) is playing an ever more ambitious role in counter-terrorism. Continue reading
On 10 and 11 December, EU leaders will meet for their 13th meeting of 2020, bringing to a close a year of exceptionally intensive activity for the European Council. Continue reading
During the second November 2020 plenary session, Parliament held a number of debates with Council and the European Commission. Discussions concerned fundamental rights issues such as abortion rights in Poland, the new LGBTIQ equality strategy, and Hungarian interference in the media in Slovenia and North Macedonia. Continue reading
In an effort to tackle the second wave of the coronavirus outbreak, EU Member States started reinstating restrictions on the freedom of movement in October 2020. Continue reading
In September 2020, the Commission put forward a new pact on migration and asylum, setting out a comprehensive approach to European Union (EU) migration policies that links external borders, asylum, return systems, the Schengen area of free movement and the external dimension of migration. Continue reading
Fast-tracking procedures at European Union external borders for determining whether individuals are entitled to international protection is a priority in the proposed Pact on Migration and Asylum Continue reading
In September 2020, the European Commission submitted a proposal on asylum and migration management, to replace the 2013 Dublin Regulation that determines the EU Member State responsible for examining asylum applications. Continue reading
The role of the European Council is to ‘provide the Union with the necessary impetus for its development’ and to define its ‘general political directions and priorities’. Continue reading
The ‘hotspot approach’ was presented by the European Commission as part of the European Agenda on Migration in April 2015, when record numbers of refugees, asylum-seekers and other migrants flocked to the EU. Continue reading
The EU has made substantial progress in terms of protecting its citizens since the early 1990s, often in response to dramatic incidents, such as mafia or other organised crime group murders, big money-laundering scandals, a steep increase in migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings following the 2015 migration crisis, or – more recently – a sharp rise in cybercrime, fraud and counterfeiting during the coronavirus pandemic. Continue reading
The coronavirus crisis has put huge pressure on European prisons, already often affected by chronic overcrowding and poor healthcare services. Continue reading
Established as an informal summit meeting in 1975, the European Council became a formal European Union institution, with a full-time President, in 2009, on the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon. Continue reading
The near-ubiquity of data in the lives of ordinary people, along with its exponential growth in generation rate and potential misuse, has made the protection of personal information an increasingly important social, legal and political matter for the EU. Continue reading
This infographic aims to present the latest available data on migrant flows to the EU in the year 2019. It covers the detection of illegal crossings on the EU’s external borders, numbers of deaths of migrants on those crossings, the number of asylum applications in EU Member States and their decisions on those applications. Continue reading
To curb the spread of coronavirus and to protect their populations, the EU and its Member States have restricted crossings of their external borders, and many internal EU borders, as well as restricted freedom of movement within their territory. Continue reading
Governments around the world have turned to digital technologies to tackle the coronavirus crisis. One of the key measures has been to use mobile devices to monitor populations and track individuals who are infected or at risk. Continue reading