Friday
15th Nov 2019
A two-year scheme to send asylum seekers from Greece and Italy to other EU states fell short of its potential, say EU auditors. Some 35,000 were helped - but auditors say 445,000 in Greece alone could have also potentially benefited.
As ex-national leaders, we know it's not easy to withstand public pressures and put collective interests ahead of domestic concerns. But without strong institutional leadership, EU values themselves risk ringing hollow, not least to those seeking protection on Europe's shores.
Blackouts, food shortages, and violence for migrants at "EU hotspot" on Greek island, despite billions given to Athens in European funds.
We interviewed 18 Syrian refugees in Turkey by phone. They all said Turkish authorities had arbitrarily detained them in immigration removal centres and forced them to sign forms they were not allowed to read but believed were voluntary repatriation forms.
It is too easy only to criticise the rightists and their fixation with barbed wire, Trump for his wall on the border with Mexico, Orban for his xenophobia.
A controversial counterterrorism bill could end up criminalising aid workers in the Netherlands if they enter conflict hotspots when assisting the world's most vulnerable people.
A letter to the president of the French Republic, from British Green MEP Magid Magid, following a visit to the refugee camps of Menton and Ventimiglia on the French/Italian border.
Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Ankara will "open the doors" for refugees and migrants to enter Europe unless it does more to help. The EU says it won't help Turkey create a so-called "safe zone" in north-east Syria.
The 14,000 migrants trapped on the Greek island of Lesbos has been described as "the single most worrying fundamental rights issue that we are confronting anywhere in the European Union" by the head of the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency.
The Nordic Council's prestigious annual awards ceremony this year turned into a youth revolt, with climate activist Greta Thunberg declining the environment prize and another winner criticising the Danish prime minister for racism.
One in four Germans hold antisemitic views, amid a surge in popularity by the far-right AfD party, whose leader once demanded a "180-degree U-turn" on Germany's WW2 guilt.
Centre-right and liberal MEPs have joined forces with far right ones to dilute EU commitments on helping desperate people in Mediterranean Sea rescues.
The European Commission is one step away from taking Hungary to court if it does not offer a credible explanation for why it denied detained migrants food in its transit zones along the Serbian border.
Only seven out of 28 EU states have so far supported a draft plan to disembark and relocate migrants rescued in the central Mediterranean, following a meeting in Luxembourg.
The US announcement to give free reign to a Turkish offensive into Northern Syria has consequences for migration to Europe as well.
Anti-torture witnesses told Germany but not the EU about abuse on a forced return flight to Afghanistan last year, posing questions on Europe's human rights safeguards.
A number of MEPs pressed Margaritis Schinas to drop the "Protecting the European Way of Life" title of his portfolio, which deals with migration. But Schinas refused, claiming it needs protecting from terrorists and populists. He failed to convince.
What Greece needs is for its new government to have the courage to say what everyone knows needs to happen - namely that the large-scale returns to Turkey are off the table and that the island containment policy is unsustainable.
The captain of the Sea Watch 3 migrant-rescue boat, Carola Rackete, says the draft migrant deal between some EU member states on disembarkation may force vessels to take orders from Libya.
Margaritas Schinas at his hearing before MEPs on Thursday has an opportunity to put the core values of the EU – peace, sustainable development and human rights – back at the heart of EU migration policy.
The European Commission's possible next home affairs chief, who is responsible for creating a new pact on migration and asylum, struggled to provide MEPs any specific details on how to unblock the impasse over asylum.
Thousands of migrants arriving on Greek islands are "creating unsustainable conditions" in an asylum system that was "already under great strain", the EU has warned.
The independence of Frontex's monitoring system to make sure people are treated humanely when they are forcibly returned is in question. Efforts by some national authorities are underway to create a more credible parallel system based on transparency and scrutiny.
EU interior ministers will discuss plans, cooked up by Germany, France, Italy, Malta and Finland, to redistribute migrants stranded at sea. The devil will be in the details.
The interior ministers from France, Germany, Italy, and Malta are meeting on Monday to discuss a new temporary and voluntary agreement for the relocation of asylum seekers, that will prevent EU countries from negotiating case-by-case.
French president Emmanuel Macron is pressing for an automated distribution of rescued migrants at sea - but also stands accused of tightening asylum rules in his own country as a response to the far-right.
The upcoming European Commission has shuffled migration policy into a euphemistic new "Protecting our European Way of Life" European commissioner portfolio, headed by former spokesman Margartis Schinas. Some MEPs are not happy.
The EU has made deals with several countries, such as Libya, Turkey, and Niger, to keep asylum seekers far away from Europe. Now it is planning to relocate some migrants to Rwanda, in response to the Libya migration crisis.
Only through joining up external policies to ensure no one is left behind, establishing a humane and predictable asylum system, and recognising humanitarian emergencies are a political emergency, can the EU champion the humanitarian response globally.
Germany's chancellor says she is contact with Turkey over an EU deal to stop refugees from landing on Greek islands. But the arrival of over 500 in one day, amid grim conditions, piles on pressure.
Failure to reform the EU's asylum system and to manage the crisis will likely push increasingly numbers of voters towards far-right and populist parties.
Another 40 people perished off the Libyan coast on Tuesday, as EU politics puts halt to search and rescue operations.
If confrontations gain pace between Brussels and Rome, let alone with Berlin and Paris, they could cause political radicalisation and eurozone instability.
