News

From 28 to 29 October 2020, European Union experts jointly with the State Border Guard Service (SBGS) and the State Customs Service (SCS) of Ukraine completed the first field assessment mission to the border crossing point (BCP) Yahodyn–Dorohusk at the Ukrainian–Polish border.

On 20 October 2020 ICMPD completed a mission to Afghanistan where fruitful meetings were held with His Excellency First Vice President Amrullah Saleh as well as the Ministers and Deputy-Ministers responsible for Foreign Affairs, Labour & Social Affairs, Refugees & Repatriation, and Peace. Moreover, ICMPD met with the Afghan Border Police, the EU Delegation in Kabul, the Aga Khan Development Network as well as the Danish, Dutch and German representations to Afghanistan.

On 23 October 2020, the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) organised a webinar in the framework of the EU-funded Forced-Return Monitoring III (FReM III) project. During the webinar, the FReM III project team at ICMPD presented the main results and recommendations of the assessment of how the pool of forced-return monitors (Pool) currently functions.

Trafficking in human beings (THB) is a global phenomenon. Turkey has continuously improved its anti-trafficking response since early 2000s to prevent this crime and to support victims of trafficking and persons at risk.

The aim of the project "Youth work in the context of integration" (YRMA) is to bring youth workers and practitioners working in the field of integration closer together and create synergies between these two fields. Policy recommendations to foster this inter-sectoral cooperation have been developed in the course of the project and have now been validated during workshops in the four participating Federal Provinces, namely Vienna, Upper Austria, Vorarlberg and Salzburg.

2020 is a year of reflection, marked by the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC). To mark the EU Anti-Trafficking Day 2020, ICMPD takes the opportunity to reflect upon the past years. Twenty years ago, the adoption of UNTOC was the first major step in the fight against transnational organised crime. Its Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children provided the first legally binding modern definition of trafficking in persons (TIP) and an impetus to develop national anti-trafficking legislation.

Within the EU-funded "TALENTAS" project, ICMPD organised a virtual study tour for Lithuanian participants to Denmark. Due to Covid-19, the study tour took place in a digital from 5-9 October 2020, allowing participants to get insights from the decennial and frontrunner experience of Denmark in public-led talent attraction management, strategy and operations.

Preventing irregular migration and addressing the smuggling of migrants and trafficking in human beings, as outlined in the India-EU Common Agenda on Migration and Mobility (CAMM) is a priority area. Equally important is facilitating Indian migration to meet the needs of European companies and the EU economy as a whole.

The intention of the EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum is to offer a "fresh start" for a system that manages and "normalises" migration. In the introduction, migration is framed as a "feature of human history" that brings growth, innovation and social dynamism, a vision fully embraced and promoted by the Global Initiatives Programme at ICMPD.

Within the framework of the EU-funded "Strategic and institutional management of migration in Libya" project, ICMPD has published a briefing note entitled "Libya and COVID-19: How the pandemic has affected migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons".

This study is issued by the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo on behalf of EUROMED Migration IV, a programme committed to establishing a constructive framework for dialogue and technical exchange on migration policy in the Euro-Mediterranean region.

On 6 October 2020, ICMPD Director General was a keynote speaker at an event organised by the German Embassy in Sofia. German Ambassador Christoph Eichhorn underlined that Germany wants to use the remaining time of Germany’s Council Presidency to push forward rapidly the negotiations of the "New Pact on Migration and Asylum" and invited the ICMPD Director General to share his views on the Pact with more than 20 state representatives and representatives of international organisations.

On Monday 5 October, a ceremony took place at the Lebanese Ministry of Defense, to officially handover search and rescue equipment to a range of Lebanese safety and security agencies. The equipment is a donation from the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), as part of the technical assistance project Swiss Support to Integrated Border Management (IBM) in Lebanon (Phase 2).

With COVID-19 the second external shock to asylum systems in 5 years, ICMPD held a virtual meeting on 1 October on strengthening asylum procedures to promote human and public security. This was the latest in a series of virtual Member State meetings as part of ICMPD’s Annual Policy Initiative 2020.

Few topics have divided Europe as much in recent years as migration and asylum. The new pact on Migration and Asylum puts migration back on the EU agenda, writes Michael Spindelegger.