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In anticipation of the upcoming High-Level Conference on the Eastern Mediterranean/Western Balkans Route on 8 October, ICMPD analyses the EU response so far and identifies areas for increased commitment to better manage the current refugee crisis.

Reaching consensus on the emergency relocation of 120.000 refugees and ‘quota’, a thorn in Eastern Europe’s side, will remain a subject for debate in the coming weeks. This article analyses the contentious proposed distribution key.

The United Nations and its Member States have committed to adopting a major agreement on international migration in 2018, the Global Compact for Migration. The worldwide consultation process to determine what this agreement should actually entail continues in Vienna this week with a thematic session on smuggling of migrants, trafficking in persons and contemporary forms of slavery, including appropriate identification, protection and assistance to migrants and trafficking victims. UN Member States, NGOs, the private sector and intergovernmental organisations, including ICMPD, will gather to give their input and recommendations, feeding into the drawing up of the Global Compact itself.

The Von der Leyen Commission plans to crack down on widespread abuse of Europe’s asylum system whilst doubling down on relocation as the solution to irregular boat arrivals in the Mediterranean. Can the Schengen area learn the lessons of the 2015-2016 crisis?

By 1 July, free movement should once again be a reality within the EU’s passport-free zone, more or less. The Union is re-opening the single market just in time to secure this year’s agricultural production and the tourist season. The big question now is whether and how to re-open to the rest of the world.

Governments are considering ‘immunity passports’ to allow those with COVID-19 antibodies greater mobility and to provide employers with an increasing pool of people to fill public-facing jobs. This may seem tempting but would lead to mass discrimination in the labour market, and also provide perverse incentives to potential migrants to become infected. There are alternatives.

Governments are seeking the balance between containing the COVID-19 pandemic and saving the economy. Migrant workers are essential in this regard, and the EU and its member states have to find ways to manage labour migration in an era of restricted mobility.

As the coronavirus has upended life as we know it around the globe, asylum systems have not been spared. With national governments acting in different ways to stem its spread, the pandemic has resulted in a series of measures that have far-reaching consequences for asylum systems and applicants for international protection.

Due to Covid-19 lockdown, the importance of ‘key workers’ performing ‘systemically relevant’ jobs is clearer. Many of these are migrants, most of them are women. An ICMPD data survey illustrates the importance of refugees to alleviate the disruption caused by the pandemic.

Sars-CoV-2 (Covid-19) is doing to travel and migration what the 2008 financial crash did to banks and the flow of capital. Instead of a ‘credit crunch’, the world economy is crippled by a global mobility shutdown. The road back will not be easy.

On 14 November 2017, UN Member States, intergovernmental organisations, representatives of civil society organisations and the private sector are coming together in Geneva for the fourth thematic discussion on the Global Compact on Refugees focusing on “measures to be taken in pursuit of solutions”.

Suppose an expert in international protection is contacted by Adnan, a 38 year old Syrian man from Aleppo. He asks for advice and wants to know where to go in order to receive protection from persecution and the war in Syria. What should a migration expert suggest to Adnan? First of all, the borders to neighbouring countries Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey are almost completely closed. Therefore, in order to find refuge in any foreign country and to fulfil the refugee definition, a border needs to be crossed, and that needs to be done irregularly which may be dangerous itself. But which country provides promising prospects?

In this article we examine smuggling through the prism of protection, highlighting how counter-smuggling operations can better take into account human rights considerations into their approaches.

Trafficking in human beings (THB) is a complex issue. At the heart of trafficking is the exploitation of one human being against their will by another, yet a large number of legal and social issues are linked with this process. As a result, trafficking can simultaneously be considered an organised crime challenge, a human rights violation, an issue linked with migration, labour market dynamics, gender or economic development. Each of these perspectives applies a different “narrative” to explain what human trafficking is and why it occurs. These different narratives sometimes present challenges for media professionals and journalists reporting on THB, and can lead to inaccurate or damaging representations of trafficking in the media.

18 October 2017 is the 11th EU Anti-Trafficking Day. At ICMPD, we take this opportunity to analyse the linkages between migration, asylum and human trafficking, to stress the importance of the distinctions between human trafficking and migrant smuggling, and to address the vulnerabilities of migrants and refugees to trafficking.