The EU has promised that it will step up its rate of returns for migrants and asylum seekers who are refused the right to stay in the bloc. On Wednesday, a plane carrying more than 60 Bangladeshi migrants landed in the capital Dhaka.
EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson has reiterated that the EU needs migration. During a press conference announcing future EU migration policy, she declared that "investing in safe and legal routes is the only sustainable soultion to save [migrants'] lives."
EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson has said in an interview that erecting walls cannot be a sustainable solution to the migration issue. She urged that instead there should be a greater focus on repatriation.
The search for a solidarity-based asylum policy continues in the new year. Two camps are irreconcilably opposed in the EU. Will they take in more people or raise barriers to entry?
EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson announced that Ukrainian nationals who opt to go back to their home country while the war with Russia continues are allowed to return to the EU. She added, however, that data on who was coming and who was going was not readily available yet.
A meeting of EU interior ministers in France on February 3, resulted in the establishment of a new Schengen Council as well as proposals to get member states to either accept migration quotas or pay towards supporting other members that do.
European Union and UNHCR officials have announced that Latvia, Lithuania and Poland still use "pushbacks and other violations of human rights" at the borders to keep migrants out. They added that they are also denying access to aid groups trying to help people in the border region with Belarus.
Fifteen EU countries have pledged to offer protection to nearly 40,000 people from Afghanistan. Germany alone has agreed to take in more than half of the evacuees.
EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson has accussed Belarus' leader Alexander Lukashenko of trying to 'destabilize the EU' by letting migrants cross into Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
An EU report assessing whether Western Balkan countries continue to meet requirements for visa liberalization showed that despite a drop in illegal crossings, improvement is needed in migration management.
European Union officials have pledged millions of euros to help member state Lithuania tackle an ongoing spike in migrant arrivals. Lithuanian officials blame the spike on the government of neighboring Belarus and its authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko.
A top EU commissioner is visiting Tunisia in the hope of striking a deal to reduce migrant sea-crossings. The EU also wants to move migrants from Italy to other member states.