Ministers and representatives from 40 countries along with the African Union, the European Union and international organisations, jointly agreed on implementing the Cairo Action Plan. The plan includes addressing irregular migration, promoting skills mobility and pathways for regular migration, protecting refugees and displaced persons, fight against migrant smuggling and human trafficking, and safe, timely, dignified and effective return.

On the occasion of the Kingdom of Sweden taking on the Chairmanship of International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) Steering Group for 2025, European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner outlined the EU’s migration priorities such as improving return policies, promoting labour mobility, and combatting migrant smuggling. Mr Brunner also called for a “flexible, responsive and pragmatic” approach, and commended ICMPD’s work along key migratory routes, and its multi-dimensional way of thinking.

The INTAKE Project takes a comparative analysis the labour market participation of displaced Ukrainian women in Austria, Germany, and Poland; and the challenges they face due to the temporality of their status in these countries. The study recommends streamlined recognition of their qualifications and pathways to transition into long-term residence, and to address the challenges they face in finding employment.

The extension of temporary protection until March 2026 has given the EU and its Member States additional time to monitor the development of the war in Ukraine and to identify possible exit strategies from temporary protection. However, recent diplomatic tensions between the United States and Ukraine have made predicting the war’s trajectory even more difficult. To ensure that Ukrainians under temporary protection do not remain in indefinite uncertainty, efforts to develop EU wide structured exit strategies from temporary protection must continue. An examination of the corresponding policies of individual European states can provide valuable insight in this regard.

ICMPD’s Migration Outlook presents a brief analysis of recent migration and policy trends and provides an outlook on developments and events to watch out for. In the 2025 edition, you will find the ten most pressing issues to look out for this year, as well as origins, key events and trends in migration policy.

ICMPD has opened a new Migrant Resource Centre (MRC) in Sulaymaniyah, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR-I). The MRC promotes safe and regular migration processes for prospective migrants, combat trafficking and people-smuggling through raising awareness, pre-departure counselling for emigrants, post-arrival briefings to migrant workers, and re-integration support for returnees and internally displaced populations.