November
Austria calls for EU to adopt UK-style Rwanda plan for refugees
A demand for "asylum procedures in safe third countries" is one of five items on a wishlist put together by Gerhard Karner, Austrian interior minister.
EU: 'Instrumentalisation' Regulation: latest Council Presidency compromise text
On 21 November, the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU circulated an updated compromise text of the proposed 'Regulation addressing situations of instrumentalisation in the field of migration and asylum'.
EU: Mediterranean migration plan underpinned by more policing and border enforcement in repressive states
An extraordinary meeting of the EU Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council will take place tomorrow to discuss migration. The European Commission has published a plan setting out the general direction for action in the central Mediterranean. Other documents obtained by Statewatch shed more light on the matter: more intensive police cooperation with repressive states and externalisation of borders instead of relocation of refugees, in full knowledge of the dire situation for people seeking safety, in particular in Libya.
Schengen border crossing times to increase massively when new database comes into use
EU institutions and member states are racing to have the Entry/Exit System (EES) in place by May 2023. The system will be used for the biometric registration of all travellers to the EU, compiling the times and places they entered and left the bloc. Stay times will be automatically calculated with the hope of catching and removing 'overstayers'. However, the waiting time for travellers at borders looks set to increase substantially. A compilation of member states' comments gives an overview of progress with the system's implementation.
Council seeks to water down human rights safeguards in migration “instrumentalisation” rules
References to child’s best interest and non-refoulement removed; derogations could be applied to people “disembarked following search and rescue operations”.
New Europol rules massively expand police powers and reduce rights protections
The new rules governing Europol, which came into force at the end of June, massively expand the tasks and powers of the EU’s policing agency whilst reducing external scrutiny of its data processing operations and rights protections for individuals, says a report published today by Statewatch.
New online map of the EU’s ‘interoperable’ immigration and policing databases
Statewatch has published an online ‘map’ providing a visual representation of, and information on, the data architecture in the European Union's "area of freedom, security and justice".
New document collection available on Frontex and "operational personal data"
We have published a trove of documents obtained by the journalists Luděk Stavinoha, Apostolis Fotiadis and Giacomo Zandonini for an investigation into Frontex's controversial plan to expand its use of personal data to combat terrorism and "cross-border crime".
EU seeks policing agreement with Israel as far-right leader tipped to become police minister
EU and member state officials have begun discussing a working agreement between Europol and the Israeli authorities. It would allow the exchange of personal data, including sensitive categories of data such as biometrics, racial and ethnic origin, or religious or political beliefs. It also includes derogations that would allow data transferred by Europol to be used in the occupied territories.
Europol management board in breach of new rules as soon as they came into force
The EU’s police agency, Europol, has landed itself in trouble again. Having been formally admonished by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) late last year for its illegal processing of vast quantities of personal data, and in September for refusing an access request to the personal data of a political activist and trying to cover it up by deleting his data from the system, Statewatch can now reveal that the agency’s management board was in breach of the new rules governing the agency as soon as they came into force in June.
Migrant smuggling in the Western Balkans: Europol, Frontex and EU Asylum Agency presentations
On 28 September the Council of the EU's Working Party on External Aspects of Asylum and Migration (EMWP) discussed migrant smuggling in the Western Balkans. Representatives of Europol, Frontex and the EU Asylum Agency were there to give presentations, which we are publishing here.
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