7 May 2024 – The Finnish and Italian governments last month presented a plan on “countering instrumentalization of migration and migrant smuggling” to the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting, calling for “innovative ways” to address the issues – including by increased cooperation between the EU and NATO.

The “non-paper” (pdf) argues that the EU and NATO “should further develop their means of responding to hybrid threats,” a military term that in recent years has come to encompass the “instrumentalization” of migrants by non-EU states.

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According to Finland and Italy, the deal with Tunisia sets the standard “for further balanced, comprehensive, mutually beneficial partnerships with third countries,” and highlights “the importance of ensuring its full implementation.” Doing so will require a more prominent role for Europol and Frontex, says the note, which asserts a need to “harness all the capabilities of Frontex in line with the whole-of-route concept through effectively deploying the Agency in third countries.”

Read the article on the website of Statewatch

Continue reading “On International Migrants Day activists demand an end to Frontex’s activities in Africa”

In advance of the upcoming action day, we talked to the Civil Fleet podcast about Frontex’s wrongdoings on the African continent, the problems with border externalisation, and why the EU border regime needs to be abolished.

Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or directly here.

19 November 2023 – The European Commission wants to agree “new anti-smuggling operational partnerships” with Tunisia and Egypt before the end of the year, despite longstanding reports of abuse against migrants and refugees in Egypt and recent racist violence endorsed by the Tunisian state. Material and financial support is already being stepped up to the two North African countries, along with support for Libya.

The plan for new “partnerships” is referred to in a newly-revealed annex of a letter from European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, that was sent to the European Council prior to its meeting in October and published by Statewatch.

Read the article on the website of Statewatch.

The European architecture for border surveillance has been continuously expanding in an attempt to detect, deter and repel refugees and migrants. For those who manage to enter, they are biometrically registered and screened against large-scale databases, raising serious concerns on privacy violations, data protection breaches and questions of proportionality. 

Recently Euromed Rights launched a new fact sheet with infographics on the use of Artificial Intelligence for border control and surveillance. The fact sheet is based on the report ‘Europe’s Techno Borders‘ which Euromed Rights and Statewatch published earlier this year.

[Taken from the Instagram of the Frachcollective] 20 October 2023 – Yesterday, 45 detained people on the move entered into a hunger strike protesting their detention at the Slovakian-Hungarian border town Medved’ov. Mostly Kurdish people from Iraq and Turkey, as well as people from Afghanistan, are detained since weeks, some for months, without any information on the reasons why or for how long.

The night before 30 riot police with dogs entered the detention center to intimidate people on the move who are demanding their freedom. Continue reading “Solidarity with uprising in Medved’ov migrant detention center (Slovakia)”