The number of people trying to get into the EU dropped by around a half in 2012, the EU's border agency said Thursday (18 April). The Warsaw-based Frontex says some 73,000 people were detected in 2012, down from around ...

The economic crisis is leading to a rise in the number of people being trafficked for sex, hard labour or organ donation, the EU commission said Monday (15 April,) but the vast majority of member states have failed to ...

A sudden increase in unfounded EU asylum claims from Balkan nations could see their visa-free regimes temporarily revoked, say euro-deputies. The European Parliament’s civil liberties committee on Monday (8 April) voted ...

The number of people seeking asylum in Europe is on the rise, as conflicts and poverty force families to leave their home countries. The EU statistics office, Eurostat, said on Friday (22 March) the EU registered 330, ...

Refugees and asylum seekers from Afghanistan in Turkey are caught in a legal limbo, pushing some into the arms of smugglers. Turkey does not give refugee status to anybody from Afghanistan or outside Europe. The ...

A chief of police in a border town in northeastern Greece says irregular migrants are no longer crossing into the country from its land border with Turkey. Barbed-wire fences, landmines, thermal night vision cameras and ...

A 12.5-km-long fence rolled with barbwire runs across plots of garlic and asparagus on the Greek-Turkish border. For the small farming community at Nea Vyssa, the presence of Greek military and police is a welcome ...

The poor treatment of migrants and asylum seekers in Greece is a humanitarian disaster, says a report released on Wednesday (19 December) by Amnesty International. “Greece’s failure to respect the rights of migrants and ...

Euro-deputies in the justice and homes affairs committee voted on Monday (17 December) to support draft legislation that would allow law enforcement authorities access to a finger print database on asylum seekers. The ...

EU ministers of interior are set to discuss visa policy in Brussels on Thursday (6 December) with several member states wanting to reintroduce visas for passport holders from Western Balkan countries. Austria, Belgium, ...

Over 500 undocumented migrants detained for the past three months at the Komotini police academy in eastern Greece have rioted and set fire to the premises. "The riots have stopped. It is not the first but it is the ...

Take control of asylum applications or risk losing the right for citizens to visit the EU without a visa EU justice and home affairs ministers warned Balkan countries on Thursday (25 October). But despite tough talk ...

Is the EU edging closer to making a fundamental and strategic mistake by restoring the visa requirement for citizens of the Western Balkans? At this moment the interior ministers of six EU countries - Germany, Belgium, ...

"Seventy-two people are [sic] dying in front of me," Ethiopian boat survivor Abu Kurke told EUobserver in Brussels on Thursday (11 October). Kurke is one of the nine people out of 72 who survived a tragic attempt to ...

MEPs have voted to reinforce asylum seekers' rights in the EU after four years of talks with member states. The decision, which came in the civil liberties' committee on Wednesday (19 September) and which will become EU ...

A row between the European Commission and the EU's data privacy chief has broken out over plans to give police access to biometric data from the fingerprints of asylum seekers. In a bluntly worded 20-page report ...

Authorities in Greece rounded up 6,030 undocumented migrants in Athens over the weekend and arrested 1,525 of them for not meeting the legal conditions for residency in Greece. "Those arrested will be deported to their ...

The surge of Syrian refugees into Turkey has spooked Greece into deploying 1,881 additional guards on its border. "The deployment of the above border guards has begun today. They will be stationed there [in the Evros ...

The European Commission is looking into allegations Italy is abusing the rights of asylum seekers by sending unaccompanied minors back to Greece. EU law requires member states to thoroughly process asylum claims and ...

Parts of central Athens, associated in many Europeans' minds with tourist cafes and world-class museums, have become "no-go" areas for migrants in fear of racist attacks. NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a report out on ...

Italy's readmission agreement with Greece and its recently leaked secret migration agreement with Libya have roused concerns among a number of NGOs. A report released by Amnesty International on Italy and Libya on ...

The alleged beating to death of an asylum seeker by two soldiers in Malta has highlighted the country’s poor reception conditions. The Malian asylum seeker had escaped from Malta's Safi detention centre in August 2009. ...

Member states' decision to exclude the European Parliament from monitoring the EU's passport free area has blighted the entire Danish EU presidency, MEPs have said. Denmark's minister of justice, Morten Bodskov, ...

The European Commission on Wednesday (30 May) proposed to allow law enforcement authorities access to Eurodac, a biometric database of asylum seekers. Set up in 2003, the database is a repository of asylum seeker ...

The incoming Cypriot EU presidency is worried that Syrian refugees could arrive en masse in the island-nation and in the EU more broadly if the conflict gets worse. Cyprus, located around 170 km west of Syria, is ...

Bulgaria has devoted vastly bigger resources than Germany to help Greece manage its irregular migrant problem. An internal document sent by the Danish EU presidency to the EU Council in late April - and seen by ...

Nearly 30,000 irregular border crossings were detected on Europe’s external borders in the last three months of 2011, the European Commission said on Wednesday (16 May). In its first annual report on the Schengen ...

An EU-co-financed project is aiming to mass-produce autonomous land vehicles designed to stop irregular migrants. Using a €13 million grant from the European Commission's research budget and €7 million of private ...

Greece on Sunday (29 April) set up its first detention centre for undocumented migrants, composed of box homes, surrounded by high wire, and meant to house some 1,200 people Citizens’ Protection Minister Michalis ...

The incoming Cypriot presidency is getting ready to tackle the biggest and ugliest dossier in the EU - the money - amid problems in its own backyard. "It's the big bang in the EU because everything gets put on the table ...

Handcuffed and leashed, asylum seekers in Hungary often find themselves in deplorable conditions, says a report released on Tuesday (24 April) by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). "They are ...

As EU politicians line up to say that Spain does not need a bail-out, Cuban exiles in the country say the crisis is so bad they wish they had stayed at home. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on a visit to Warsaw on ...

Confusion, denial and ignored distress signals by Nato, warships and two fishing boats led to the death of 63 migrants (including children) on a boat which tried to cross the Mediterranean last year, according to a ...

Just over 300,000 asylum applicants registered in Europe last year, up from 259,000 in 2010, the EU's statistical office, Eurostat, revealed on Friday (23 March). The vast majority registered in France, Germany and ...

The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday (23 February) ruled that Italy’s decision to send fleeing refugees and African migrants crossing the Mediterranean back to Libya was a violation of fundamental human rights ...

During the first half of this year, an average 25 Bosnian citizens requested asylum in Belgium every month. In August, their number increased to 81. The number for September is likely to be even a bit higher. This is ...