On 22 April 2020, ICMPD organised the third project steering group (PSG) meeting in the framework of the EU-funded project Forced-Return Monitoring III (FReM III).
Due to the current COVID 19 pandemic, the project team organised a remote meeting. It gathered project partners from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Switzerland. Furthermore, representatives from the Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME), the Fundamental Rights Office (FRO), the European Centre for Returns (ECRet) and the Training Unit (TRU) of Frontex, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), and ICMPD participated in the meeting.
In order to plan upcoming events, especially in light of the current crisis, participants provided an update on planned or foreseeable national measures and restrictions in the partner countries and by the partner organisations. The FReM III project team updated participants on implemented, ongoing and upcoming activities. Due to travel and other restrictions put in place by national authorities, the project team currently focuses mainly on activities that do not require travel and/or personal meetings and ensures remote meeting implementation whenever possible.
FReM III contributes to a functioning EU Return System in line with the EU Return Directive (2008/115/EC) with two specific objectives namely, to further establish the pool of forced-return monitors in line with the European Border and Coast Guard Regulation 2019/1896 (EBCG), and to further strengthen national forced-return monitoring systems in Member States. The project runs for 30 months from December 2018 until 31 May 2021 with participation of 22 partner countries. ICMPD manages and implements the FReM III project in close cooperation with Frontex and FRA. The Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) of the European Union and the partner countries co-fund the project.