Archive
Deportations: New role for Frontex as EU pushes for more “voluntary” returns
A special report by Hope Barker and Anas Ambri: The EU has been funding new accelerated asylum and deportation procedures in Bulgaria, including a new "assisted voluntary return" project. Increasing "voluntary" returns is a key part of the plan to increase deportations from the EU, with Frontex playing an increasing role. The project targets individuals in detention. Experts question whether such procedures can ever be truly voluntary. Read More
Bulgaria and Romania speed up asylum and deportation procedures with EU support
"Pilot projects" intended to beef up border controls, accelerate asylum and deportation proceedings, and reinforce the role of EU agencies in Bulgaria and Romania have just begun - yet EU legislation intended to do the same is yet to be approved. Read More
Von der Leyen letter: “key border between Bulgaria and Türkiye” is first target for €600 million fund
The European Commission is about to make €600 million available to "substantially support Member States with border control and technological equipment," and "a first objective" for that money "would be the key border between Bulgaria and Turkiye," says a letter to the European Council from Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Read More
Bulgaria: Secret surveillance data “could be used for nefarious purposes” due to lack of safeguards, rules ECHR
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Bulgarian law regulating secret surveillance by the the police, prosecutors, and military and security agencies is of insufficient quality to protect individuals against violations of the right to privacy, and that the data gathered through secret surveillance operations "could be used for nefarious purposes" due to a lack of safeguards. Read More
EU: Bulgaria blocks North Macedonia Frontex agreement
Bulgaria is preventing the signature of an agreement allowing the deployment of Frontex teams in North Macedonia because "Bulgaria doesn’t recognise the language of North Macedonia as “Macedonian”, as the authorities in Skopje call it. Bulgarian scientists consider it as a dialect of Bulgarian." Read More
Bulgaria will relocate some refugees from Moria, but racism and xenophobia make it a tough destination
Bulgaria has agreed to accept 70 unaccompanied minors affected by the fire in the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesvos. However, conditions for migrants and refugees are problematic - the use of detention is widespread, and racism and xenophobia are deeply rooted in Bulgarian society, argues Milana Nikolova. Read More
Greece-Bulgaria: Weaponizing a River by Ifor Duncan and Stefanos Levidis
"On the 10th of March, news reports emerged suggesting that Bulgaria had released water downstream from the Ivaylovgrad Dam on the Ardas, a tributary of the Evros (also Meriç, and Maritsa), and flooded the river border at the request of the Greek government. This intentional flooding of the border was subsequently denounced as fake news by the Bulgarian authorities and remains unverified. Yet due to the increasing severity of spring floods, including as recently as 2018, the release of water from Bulgarian dams has been a subject of friction between Greece, Turkey, and their upstream riparian neighbor." Read More
EU: Joint statement on the principles of the rule of law in times of Covid-19
"Statement by Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden" Read More
EU: Passenger Name Record (PNR): Commission closes eight infringement proceedings for failure to transpose passenger surveillance rules
"The European Commission closes today [2 April 2020] infringement procedures against eight Member States as they transposed EU rules on Passenger Name Record data into national law." Read More
EU/Greece/Turkey: Crisis not averted: security policies cannot solve a humanitarian problem, now or in the long-term
At the end of February, the Turkish government announced it would allow refugees to travel onwards to Greece and Bulgaria, in the hope of extracting from the EU further financial support as well as backing for its military operations in Syria. It has now taken up its role as Europe’s border guard again, but the manufactured crisis induced by the Turkish decision and the EU response highlight the long-term failings of the EU’s asylum and migration model. Read More