Thursday
13th Dec 2018
It's not surprising that a handful of nationalist European governments – Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Italy – have followed Trump's lead in rejecting the UN's migration pact, to be formally adopted in Marrakech next week.
The EU commission, in a novel approach back in 2015, linked EU agriculture policy to humanitarian aid. Did it work?
Both the EU and Turkey are on the receiving end of Trump tariffs, which placed them in the same camp against the US.
Most migrants, like most European citizens, would rather have proper contracts, pay taxes and benefit from the social services rather than toil in the fields for up to 15 hours a day, in dangerous conditions, for meagre pay.
"The European Union ... operates on the basis of rules, not threats," the commission said, after Italy warned it would not pay into the EU budget if other states did not take migrants.
Rosengard, a migrant district in Malmo, Sweden, has a reputation for gang warfare and social deprivation, but some young people there are pushing for change.
The European Commission claims sea crossings from Libya are more dangerous because smugglers are using less seaworthy boats. But it fails to explain why that is - an omission of their own policies of boat capture and seizure.
The European Commission wants EU states to voluntarily accept rescued asylum seekers - in a plan that would then phase out when the stalled reforms on the 'Dublin' regulation, which imposes relocation, are sorted.
A UN migration pact aimed at laying down basic principles for tackling migration on a global level gets caught up in Europe's heated political debate on nationalism and migration, ahead of the May 2019 European elections.
South Sudan's country director for the World Food Programme (WFP) says he could save donors some $100m if they were to front-load funds today to stave off hunger in the war-torn country, which saw a mass rape last month.
French liberal Patricia Lalonde is leaving EuroMeda, a Belgian foundation, following an investigation by this website into Morocco lobbying. She maintains her impartiality.
The Visegrad Four would be wise to focus on how the lack of migrants could undermine their economic models, future prosperity and welfare.
European Parliament lawyers endorsed plans by the EU to set up centres in north Africa to offload rescued migrants, but did so on the basis of making big assumptions given the lack of operational and technical details.
The European parliament's lead negotiator on the Morocco trade deal, French liberal MEP Patricia Lalonde, is also on the EuroMedA Foundation board along with former Moroccan state ministers and a top ranking official in Morocco's ministry of agriculture.
EU foreign ministers must choose between contaminating their civilian missions and operations with panic over security and migration, and reaffirming the EU's core values as a global actor for peace and development.
Turkey's refusal to hand over personal data of Syrian refugees means the European Commission and the European Court of Auditors are unable to fully trace "from cradle to grave" over €1bn spent to help them.
Germans, in particular those living in the east, are demonstrating higher levels of xeonphobia and backlash against religious minorities than when compared to five years ago, according to a new study.
The European Commission wants to increase the return rates of rejected asylum seekers, following pressure from EU states. But the reforms proposed seek to increase detention, and put people who are appealing their decisions at risk.
Following the example of Austria and Hungary, Prague is also mulling pulling out of a UN deal on migration aimed to better manage the flow of people - a move the UN called "bizarre".
The United States will not allow any international reconstruction in Syria, given the damage carried out by the Damascus regime and its allies Russia and Iran.
An estimated 80 percent of Syrian refugees in the EU are unemployed - despite this, the integration of asylum seekers and migration remains outside the European Commission's policy objectives in its latest budget proposals for regional development and cohesion policy.
Europe is increasing the suffering of migrants, including children, on the EU's only land border with Africa, the archbishop of Tangiers has said.
EU leaders at the summit in Brussels want partnerships with north African states that go beyond migration. But internal EU reforms on asylum, especially sharing of migrants and refugees between member states, remain stuck.
The sense of a migration "crisis" remains unabated, fuelled by populists and pseudo-strongmen manipulating the fear among voters for their own short-term political ends.
EU member states and the European Commission are pressing ahead with plans to possibly use Morocco and Tunisia as countries to offload asylum seekers and migrants - part of larger bid to create a so-called "safe third country" list.
EU interior ministers are meeting in Luxembourg this Friday to discuss migration. The Austrian EU presidency is hoping to reach a consensus on Dublin reforms and a concept of 'mandatory solidarity' after briefing 27 EU states bilaterally over the summer.
More people in Libya are being inducted into slavery as people-traffickers try to monetise their investment by selling them. A senior UN refugee agency official described it as an unintended side effect of the reduction of migrant boat departures.
A man is seeking EU support to release his parents from Egyptian prisons, where both have been detained without charge for over 450 days, the mother in solitary confinement. The pressure comes amid EU plans to increase cooperation with Cairo.
Issues of sovereignty remain entrenched following a proposal by the European Commission to expand the EU's border and coast guard, also known as Frontex, to 10,000. But EU leaders maintain a "basic consensus" of support had been reached.
EU vetting procedures for Libyan coast guard training could pose a security threat, among disagreement on how to handle unfit applicants.
Leaders ate Wiener schnitzel and discussed EU fragmentation on migrants, Brexit, and rule of law in the Salzburg theatre in Austria.
The European Commission's rationale for reforming Frontex is flawed.
EU council president Donald Tusk wants to discuss deepening relations with authoritarian Egypt, as a model of migrant reduction, with EU heads of state and government at a meeting in Salzburg, Austria on Wednesday.
