Between January and December 2024, at least 142 people faced judicial proceedings in the EU for helping migrants. The majority were charged with facilitation of entry, stay or transit or migrant smuggling (depending on how the crime is defined in the national legislation). The figures stem from media monitoring and research conducted by the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) throughout 2024.

This is most likely an undercount, as statistical and official data concerning those who are being accused, charged, or convicted for smuggling and related offences is often lacking. Many cases go unreported by the media or because people fear retaliation, especially migrants themselves. In addition, some cases reported by the media might not have been detected by our alert system.

Nonetheless, this data confirms a concerning, ongoing trend observed in previous reports. At least 117 people were criminalised in the EU in 2023. At least 102 in 2022, and at least 89 between January 2021 and March 2022.

Silvia Carta, Advocacy Officer at PICUM and author of the study, said: “This is the fourth year in a row that we document increasing levels of criminalisation of both migrants and people who help them. And what we’re able to monitor is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Our media monitoring found that most people criminalised were in Greece (62), Italy (29), Poland (17) and France (17). Other cases were found in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Malta, and Latvia.

Among those criminalised, 88 people were criminalised for rescuing or helping migrants in distress at sea. 21 were criminalised for providing food, water or clothing to migrants; 17 for protests and manifestations. For instance, in Poland, five people providing humanitarian aid at the Poland-Belarus border are facing potential sentences of up to five years in prison.

The average length of the proceedings recorded by our media monitoring is three years, but in several cases the actual length can be much longer. In one case that resulted in an acquittal in 2024, a woman faced nearly ten years of legal proceedings after being criminalised in 2014 for purchasing train tickets for a group of Syrian refugees in Sicily, Italy.

In 2024, court proceedings concluded for 43 of the 142 individuals criminalised. Among them, the vast majority of people (41) were acquitted or had their charges dropped. Even if a case may end in an acquittal, trials still have heavy consequences on people’s finances, personal life, and psychological wellbeing.

People criminalised for crossing borders irregularly

Not only solidarity with migrants is being criminalised under counter-smuggling legislation, but also the very act of migrating. According to our monitoring, between January 2024 and December 2024, at least 91 people in Italy, Greece and Spain were criminalised for the sole act of crossing borders irregularly.

People who are criminalised for migrating irregularly are punished twice: they face harsh legal proceedings and, in two thirds of cases, are imprisoned even before their trial begins. In Italy, Maysoon Majidi, a Kurdish-Iranian activist and filmmaker, spent 300 days in pre-trial detention on trafficking charges because she had distributed water to passengers on a boat.

This contrasts sharply with criminalisation of solidarity cases involving EU nationals, where pre-trial detention is rarely applied.

Silvia Carta said: “The criminalisation of solidarity with migrants is deeply tied with the criminalisation of migration itself. These are not two separate issues but are in fact a continuum of restrictive migration policies that make border crossing unsafe and create a hostile environment against those who are considered to have entered in an irregular manner.”

Most people facing criminal charges due to crossing borders irregularly (84%) are accused of steering a boat or driving a vehicle across a border, or of allegedly assisting in managing passengers on board. Often, the person was simply a passenger, or distributed food and water, used a phone and a map while at sea, or even helped others in difficult situations, for instance when a boat was about to capsize.

In Greece, an Egyptian fisherman and his 15-year-old child were charged with smuggling, simply because the father reluctantly agreed to pilot their boat to afford the journey. The father was placed in pre-trial detention and sentenced to 280 years in prison. Not only was the child separated from his father, but he now also faces the same charges in a juvenile court.

In both Italy and Greece, shipwreck survivors were prosecuted as smugglers.

The new EU Facilitation Directive

Criminalisation trends are likely to worsen due to a proposal to revise the current EU legislation on migrant smuggling (EU Facilitation Directive). The proposal from the European Commission, currently under negotiation in the European Parliament, leaves the door open to the criminalisation of humanitarian assistance and could expand the grounds for criminalising migrants.

Silvia Carta said, “The proposed Facilitation Directive risks leading to more people being arrested or brought to trial for helping people in need, and to migrants themselves being accused of smuggling. As the negotiations advance, the European Parliament must push for the strongest safeguards so that no one faces prosecution simply because they crossed a border or helped people in need”.

NOTES TO THE EDITORS:

• The report is available here. It includes the full list of monitored cases, detail on the most significant cases and more information on counter-smuggling legislation.
• In addition to criminalisation cases against individual human right defenders, activists and people crossing borders, the report also includes additional cases of administrative sanctions and non-judicial harassment of NGOs.
• The draft EU Facilitation Directive is a set of measures announced by the European Commission in November 2023, which aim at countering migrant smuggling. The measures focus on criminalising and punishing so-called smugglers (often, migrants themselves) without tackling the root causes of smuggling (i.e. the lack of safe regular routes for people to come to Europe). The new proposal, largely validated by the EU Council in December 2024, fails to introduce a clear and binding exception from criminalisation for humanitarian assistance by NGOs, family members or migrants themselves. Our position on the proposal can be found here.

On 8th April, MEPs of the civil liberties committee LIBE are set to start debating the European Commission’s proposed rules to tackle migrant smuggling (proposed EU Directive on the facilitation of irregular entry, stay or transit).

The MEPs will discuss the draft report led by socialist MEP Birgit Sippel, which will form the basis of the Parliament’s negotiating position when entering final negotiations with the Commission and Council.

The draft report includes a legally binding provision that would exempt humanitarian assistance from criminalisation. This element is particularly welcome as both the Commission’s proposal and the Council’s negotiating position confined this exemption to a non-legally binding provision, de facto leaving the door open to the criminalisation of solidarity with migrants.

PICUM has been documenting a steady rise of criminalisation of solidarity with migrants in the past few years: at least 117 people were criminalised for helping migrants in 2023; at least 102 people in 2022, and at least 89 people between January 2021 and March 2022.

The LIBE draft report also removes problematic provisions included in the Commission’s proposal, including:

• references to the “likelihood of causing serious harm” as a constitutive element of the facilitation crime, even when the accused person hasn’t received any financial or material benefit. This means that parents who have to undertake perilous journeys with their children would be at risk of prosecution, just as survivors of a shipwreck, if they had accepted to steer the boat out of necessity.  
• a new offence of “publicly instigating” irregular entry, transit, or stay, which was sharply criticised by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, amongst others, for the serious risk that this provision would be used against civil society organisations and have a chilling effect on the much-needed provision of information and services to migrants.

Despite these welcome elements, the current LIBE draft report :

• while clearly exempting ‘humanitarian assistance’ from criminalisation, still de facto leaves the exact definition of what can be considered a humanitarian act to member states. The current text only provides a non-binding definition, which encompasses various acts like assistance to family members and people in distress, or the provision of legal and medical assistance. As a result, member states would still be able to criminalise migrants, people acting in solidarity and service providers;
• fails to clearly protect people from criminalisation if they obtained a licit financial benefit when helping someone in an irregular situation. This means that landlords, taxi drivers and other people providing services traditionally offered in exchange of money would still risk being criminalised, similar to migrants who accept to steer a boat to obtain a reduction on their passage;
• does not clearly protect migrants accused of smuggling themselves, often because they simply were on a boat, distributed food and water, or even helped others on a boat at risk of capsizing;
• does not rule out the criminalisation of irregular stay.

Silvia Carta, Advocacy Officer at the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, said, “This text is a first positive step forward in the protection of solidarity actions, but more could be done to prevent the criminalisation of migrants themselves. We stand ready to work with the European Parliament so that no one faces prosecution simply because they crossed a border or helped people in need”.

The European Parliament’s plenary is expected to vote on its negotiating position in summer 2025.

NOTES TO THE EDITORS:

• The new proposed Facilitation Directive is a redraft of proposed changes to the law criminalising the facilitation of irregular migration (2002 Facilitation Directive), which has also been used to criminalise migrants and people acting in solidarity with them.
• Our position on the new proposed Facilitation Directive can be found here. This briefing includes a table comparing provisions of the 2002 Facilitation Directive with those included in the new draft Facilitation Directive.
• A recent study by the research service of the European Parliament about already found that the Commission’s proposal risks leading to increased criminalisation of migrants and those who help them. More information in our press release.
• Media inquiries can be sent to Gianluca Cesaro on gianluca.cesaro@picum.org

On 11^th March, the European Commission published a new draft law to step up and speed up deportations of undocumented people across Europe. 

This proposal has been rushed through under political pressure, with no meaningful consultation of civil society or impact assessments. This approach is guided by the imperative of increasing deportation rates, mostly by derogating from fundamental rights guarantees. 

This proposal: 

• Opens the door for member states to set up deportation centres outside the EU, leading to automatic arbitrary detention, accountability and human rights monitoring challenges, risks of chain deportations towards unsafe countries and numerous other violations of human rights and international law; 
• Turns forced returns (deportations) into the default option for people found in an irregular situation, despite the Commission’s longstanding position that more humane solutions such as voluntary departure should be the preferred option; 
• Massively expands the use and duration of immigration detention (from 18 to 24 months, with restrictive measures possible after the 24 months, including electronic monitoring and reporting obligations), including for children – despite a global commitment from governments to eradicate locking up children for immigration reasons; 
• Despite creating the conditions for overcrowded detention centres, it introduces “emergency” possibilities for member states to disregard safeguards during detention and to limit access to judicial review of detention decisions, including for families and children, when there are many people awaiting their deportation;
• Requires member states to impose geographical restrictions or reporting obligations for all people in the return procedure; 
• Introduces severe punitive measures, such as entry bans of up to 10 years (up from 5 years), extendable for 5 more years or 10 years in cases where security risks are invoked, financial penalties and reduction of financial assistance to rebuild a life after their deportation, for people who do not cooperate towards their deportation; 
• Introduces specific derogations from fundamental rights for migrants who are considered a risk for national security and public policy, further blurring the lines between criminal law and migration while reinforcing dangerous stereotypes; 
• Reinforces the false assumption that all people who are not eligible for asylum should be immediately deported, making it harder for people to access permits on other grounds, including humanitarian, family and work permits. 

Silvia Carta, Advocacy Officer at the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, said, “This new proposal is a lucid attempt to escalate the EU’s obsession with deportations, by applying a discriminatory and punitive approach to any person in an irregular situation. There is no consideration of measures that could truly foster social inclusion and regularisation. Instead, we can likely expect more people being locked up in immigration detention centres across Europe, families separated, and people sent to countries they don’t even know.” 

On 27th February, the research service of the European Parliament published a new study about the European Commission’s proposed rules to tackle migrant ‘smuggling’, which finds that they risk leading to increased criminalisation of migrants and those who help them.

The study focuses on the draft “Facilitation Directive”, which aims to criminalise the facilitation of irregular entry, stay or transit in the EU.

It is remarkable to note that the European Parliament conducted this study as a response to the Commission’s failure to assess human rights risks before proposing the new rules. At the time of this writing, the European Commission has failed to conduct a proper impact assessment of the proposed Facilitation Directive. The authors of the study recommend that the Commission withdraw the proposal until a proper impact assessment is carried out.

The study finds that the proposed Directive exacerbates the conflation of criminal law and migration control. The authors ask to refocus the proposal on combating organised criminal networks as required by international law – instead of expanding the definition of the crime of “smuggling” to activities not linked to organised crime, which would lead to the criminalisation of migrants and people who help them. The study reflects civil society’s concerns about the lack of a clear, binding clause that would exempt service provision and solidarity from criminalisation.

Silvia Carta, Advocacy Officer at the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, said, “This study reflects what many human rights actors have been denouncing all along: the proposed Facilitation Directive risks leading to more people being arrested, fined or brought to trial for helping people in need, and to migrants themselves being accused of smuggling”.

The study came out after the EU Council voted its negotiating position on the draft Directive last December, also failing to exempt solidarity from criminalisation in a binding article. The European Parliament is expected to vote on its own negotiating position in June 2025.

NOTES TO THE EDITORS:

• The new proposed Facilitation Directive is a redraft of proposed changes to the law criminalising the facilitation of irregular migration (2002 Facilitation Directive), which has also been used to criminalise migrants and people acting in solidarity with them.
• Our position on the new proposed Facilitation Directive can be found here. This briefing includes a table comparing provisions of the 2002 Facilitation Directive with those included in the new draft Facilitation Directive.
• Media inquiries can be sent to Gianluca Cesaro on gianluca.cesaro@picum.org

On 13th December 2024, the EU Council will vote on new EU rules about migrant smuggling which would leave the door open to the criminalisation of migrants and solidarity with migrants. The vote marks the Council’s position on the new draft Facilitation Directive, a European Commission proposal to counter migrant smuggling by expanding the crime definition and upping prison sentences.

The text set to be voted by the Council also fails to introduce a legally binding provision that would exempt acts of solidarity with people in an irregular situation from criminalisation. Instead, the Council will vote to simply invite member states not to criminalise humanitarian acts in a non-binding recital. Without a legal requirement that prohibits the criminalisation of migration and solidarity, there is genuine concern that member states will increase legal procedures against migrants themselves and people helping migrants.

PICUM has been documenting a steady rise of criminalisation of solidarity with migrants in the past few years: at least 117 people were criminalised for helping migrants in 2023; at least 102 people in 2022, and at least 89 people between January 2021 and March 2022.

The text to be voted by the Council underlines that the Facilitation Directive only provides for minimum rules, hinting at the possibility for member states to increase the level of criminalisation under their national legislation if they wish so.

Marta Gionco, Senior Advocacy Officer at PICUM, said: “European governments have been increasingly cracking down on migrants and on people who help them. This vote goes in the direction of more criminalisation, with more people expected to face trials, fines and prison sentences simply for helping other people.”

The trend towards more criminalisation would also risk affecting the very victims of smuggling.

International law is clear that migrants who are victims of smuggling should not be criminalised. The current law already fails to provide any protection, and the new text only mentions this in a non-binding recital, effectively leaving the door open to the criminalisation of migrants themselves, and their family members.

The European Parliament is expected to discuss its own position on the draft Facilitation Directive at the start of 2025. The Parliament and the Council will then have to reach an agreement between their respective positions, before a final text is approved.

On 26^th November 2024, the Swedish government presented the findings of a public inquiry outlining how a potential new law could oblige some public sector workers to denounce undocumented people they come in contact with to the immigration authorities.

According to the inquiry, the Swedish government should oblige the following governmental agencies in Sweden to automatically report undocumented people to the Police Authority as they come in contact with them: the Public Employment Service, Social Insurance Agency, Prison and Probation Service, Enforcement Agency, Pensions Agency and Tax Agency. The Swedish police may then pass on the information to the Migration Agency or the Security Service. It also proposes that the Swedish Economic Crime Authority and the Prosecution Authority should be obliged to provide information upon request from an enforcement agency.

The inquiry proposes exemptions for health services, schools and social services.

The government’s initiative to launch this public inquiry (included in the government’s coalition programme) had been heavily and widely criticised by several actors, including university teachers, welfare professionals, health care workers, teachers, municipal workers and library staff.

All denounce that mandatory reporting would lead to discrimination and stigmatisation, and fuel growing racism. Public workers would have to act as border guards and compromise their professional independence and integrity.

The public inquiry may form the basis of a new law proposal by the Swedish government in the next months.

Michele LeVoy, Director of the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, said: “Contrary to the inquiry’s claims, reporting obligations always have significant and harmful consequences for both individuals and society. At a minimum, they foster a climate of fear and hostility, undermining trust in public institutions, while violating Sweden’s human rights commitments. Exemptions will not mitigate these harms. We stand with national partners in urging the Swedish government to reject this reporting obligation and protect the principles of human rights.”

John Stauffer, acting Executive Director at Civil Rights Defenders, said, “Despite exemptions, this proposal risks fueling the fear of being reported, which is already today prevents undocumented migrants from accessing their rights. Rights must be accessible in practice. Realising the right to health, education, housing, protection, and an adequate standard of living requires that people feel able to claim their rights without fear.”

Hannah Laustiola, Executive Director of Doctors of the World Sweden, said, “While we are relieved that there is no proposal of a reporting obligation for health care personnel, the risk for negative consequences of a reporting obligation remains as long as there are institutions bound by the obligation. On the one hand, there is a risk that undocumented migrants, who already live in fear of deportation, will not be reached by the information that their right to health care is unchanged, and on the other hand, we see that the mere proposal of such a law has rendered public servants prone to act in violation of existing laws of classified information and the right to health.”

Ulrika Modéer, Secretary General of the Swedish Red Cross, said, “We welcome that schools, healthcare, and social services are not included in the obligation to provide information in the presented proposal, but some damage has already been done. But we must analyse further what it means that the Swedish Tax Agency will be obliged to provide information to the Police Authority, and what the Agency’s relationship to local social services will mean for victims of domestic violence. The government’s earlier lack of clarity in specifying the directives of the investigation has created fear among undocumented individuals, undermining trust in public institutions and civil society. Many avoid seeking help, which particularly impacts already vulnerable women and children.”

Jacob Lind, Postdoctoral researcher in international migration at Malmö University, said, “Much harm has already been done as the proposal has impacted the trust undocumented migrants have in society. A handful of public authorities, such as the tax and pension authorities, will now have a duty to report and this can still have implications for migrants’ access to their human rights. The main problem is that this new proposed legislation makes it easier to extend the list of authorities at a later stage with less work. The most positive takeaway from this is that collective mobilisation works. The politicians were telling the unions, civil society and other critics to wait for the investigation and then come with their criticism. But if the critics had listened to this and not resisted already before the investigation was published, it could have had a very different outcome.”

In a final vote on 19 November 2024, the EU Council passed a new EU Regulation banning products made from forced labour, which largely neglects the realities and needs of migrant workers.

While this new law is often referred to as the ‘Forced Labour Ban regulation’, the ban actually targets products, not forced labour itself. The new regulation bans products that are proven to be made with forced labour (either inside the EU or imported from outside the EU).

Silvia Carta, Advocacy Officer at PICUM, said: “While the intention to fight forced labour is certainly positive, banning products alone is not enough to help workers affected by forced labour and may even put them in situations of heightened vulnerability. This Regulation does little to address their situation, especially for those with precarious residence status and those undocumented.”

The Regulation adopted does not foresee consultation or engagement with workers involved, nor does it foresee remediation or access to better conditions for victims of forced labour who made the products. The risk is that workers experiencing forced labour will simply lose a (however precarious and inadequate) source of income without having the chance to get justice and remedy.

Workers whose residence status is dependent on the employer or undocumented workers would risk immigration enforcement if they engage with the authorities during the investigations around cases of forced labour.

The Regulation does allow all interested parties to file complaints, but without strong confidentiality provisions, protection from retaliation and the prospect to obtain redress, it is difficult to imagine how workers could use it.

The EU anti-trafficking framework is not enough to protect these workers and cannot be used as a stopgap for the shortcomings in this new Regulation. Even when undocumented workers are victims of trafficking or forced labour, they are often treated as offenders due to their immigration status and required to leave the country or are deported as a result of interacting with law enforcement and labour inspectorates. In some cases, they may obtain a temporary residence permit as long as there are criminal proceedings they are able to cooperate with. But access to remedy, including secure residence permits and compensation, remains sorely lacking.

Suzanne Hoff, International Coordinator of La Strada International, said: “While the adoption of the EU Forced Labour Regulation is a positive step forward, the level of proof required to initiate an investigation is high, putting much burden on exploited workers and NGOs to trace all evidence, while there is little obligation to remedy workers in cases of serious misconduct”.  

When implementing this Regulation, EU member states must:

• Clearly separate investigations from immigration enforcement, so that investigative authorities do not report undocumented people to immigration enforcement;
• Foresee systematic consultation with involved workers and their representatives throughout the investigation and banning process, and ensure it is safe for them to do so;
• Decriminalise victims of forced labour and provide those with precarious residence status or undocumented with the opportunity to regularise their status and find new employment, as well as other supports to access remedy and rights such as payment of back wages and compensation.

The Finnish right-wing government is set to table a draft law that restricts access to public health care for undocumented people in Finland.

According to this proposal, undocumented people would be barred from accessing non-emergency health care, with few exceptions.

Should this become law, conditions like diabetes or asthma could be left untreated, with serious risks for the person and higher chances that they will end up in emergency care in the future.

The proposal, tabled by the right-wing Orpo government, seeks to overturn a 2023 law that had allowed undocumented people to access necessary care beyond emergency situations. Necessary care was defined as any care deemed necessary by a health professional.

The limited exceptions foreseen in the new proposal fail to provide meaningful protections.

While children would retain full access to health care, their undocumented parents or other caretakers would not, which in turn would strongly impact on children’s health.

People who are in an “extremely vulnerable position regarding their health” would still get access to health care, but no clarity is given as to who this concerns and how this would be evaluated.

Other limited exceptions would be made for pregnant women, people with disabilities, and for vaccinations and treatments against certain infectious diseases that are deemed to pose a risk to public health.

Outside these limited exceptions, people would risk finding themselves with untreated conditions and ultimately in life-threatening situations.

Quotes

Aino Tuomi-Nikula, Advisor, Physicians for Social Responsibility, said, “Those who tabled this proposal pretend that we don’t have enough money for everyone and that full access to health care would invite more people to Finland. We know this is not true, and that it’s actually cheaper to treat conditions in advance by primary health care than leaving them to emergency care. This measure is a political stunt to crack down on marginalised people and bank on public fears of migrants.”

Louise Bonneau, Advocacy Officer, Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, said, “Healthcare is a basic human right, not a privilege reserved for some. This law, if passed, would lead to suffering and betray Finland’s commitment to equality and justice. It must be rejected.”

Dr Christiaan Keijzer, President of the Standing Committee of European Doctors (CPME), said “A discriminatory healthcare policy can only further endanger public health. We stand by the position of the Finnish Medical Association that adoption of this law would contradict fundamental medical ethical principles and would only serve to increase the overall cost to health services by limiting access to necessary care.”

Kirsi Marttinen, Senior Adviser, SOSTE Finnish Federation for Social Affairs and Health, said, “The bill would weaken the constitutionally guaranteed right to necessary care and adequate health services. It would undermine the right to health without discrimination, as secured by international treaties, and goes against other government initiatives to combat racism and promote equality. The proposal itself is based on the wrong assumption that healthcare rights act as a pull or retention factor—there is evidence of precisely the contrary, and it’s concerning when flawed economic arguments become a reason to curb fundamental rights.”

Michelle Gripenberg-Wik, Refugee Advice Centre (Pakolaisneuvonta ry), said, “The right to health is a fundamental and human right that belongs to everyone despite their residence status. Providing only urgent care is not enough to secure this right which Finland has agreed to respect through international agreements. International human rights treaty bodies have even previously criticized Finland for only providing urgent health care for undocumented migrants. The suggested law is very problematic and breaches international human rights obligations.”

Notes to the editors

• This draft law was to be presented to the Finnish Parliament in the week starting on 23rd  September 2024 but this was later delayed. It was first published on 12 June 2024 and subjected to a public consultation until 24 July 2024. Physicians for Social Responsibility submitted their statement (in Finnish) here.
• After its presentation to the Finnish Parliament, the draft law will be sent to the competent parliamentary committees (the Finnish Parliament has only one chamber).
• The cost of necessary care for undocumented people in Finland has been estimated to be approximately 300,000 euros (the reference is the draft law published on the Finnish Official Journal), a drop in the wellbeing service counties’ 24 billion euro budget (data from the government).
• More information about the current 2023 law can be found in this blog.

This press release is based on an article written by PICUM and published on Statewatch’s website.

A draft text proposed by the Belgian Council presidency, just published by Statewatch, furthers the criminalisation of irregular entry in the EU and threatens people helping migrants.

The text, which was presented to other EU member states on 31st May, is a redraft of proposed changes to the law criminalising the facilitation of irregular migration (2002 Facilitation Directive), which has also been used to criminalise migrants and people acting in solidarity with them.

The Belgian redraft will serve as the basis for further discussions within the Council, with Hungary now in the presidency role until the end of this year, in view of adopting a common position on the revised Facilitation Directive.

Marta Gionco, Senior Advocacy Officer at PICUM, said: “This text goes in the direction of more, not less, criminalisation of migrants and those who help them. Sadly, we can expect that the final Council position will follow this trend”

Financial benefit

The Belgian Council presidency’s redraft of the proposed Directive confirms that most member states are against the inclusion of a “financial or material benefit” element in the definition of the criminal offence of facilitation, as already indicated by a previous “non-paper”.

The presidency proposes dividing the offence into two parts. Firstly, for the facilitation of irregular entry into or transit through an EU member state, criminal sanctions would apply even if the facilitator did not receive any financial or material benefit. If there is financial or material benefit, this would be considered as an aggravating circumstance and be sanctioned with maximum sentences of at least three years of imprisonment.

Secondly, for the facilitation of irregular stay, criminal sanctions would apply only if there is financial or material benefit, as is currently the case under the 2002 Directive.

Humanitarian exemption

The presidency proposes two options for exempting humanitarian activity from criminal prosecution, in article 3, both of which are inspired by the Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs.

The first would clarify that the facilitation of irregular entry and transit does not include humanitarian actors or other assistance “aimed at meeting their basic human needs, in order to preserve their human dignity or physical and metal integrity.”

The second would require states to take “the necessary measures to ensure that humanitarian assistance, or any other assistance aimed at meeting their basic human needs, in order to preserve their human dignity or physical and metal integrity” are not criminalised.

As both options focus on “basic human needs”, acts of solidarity considered to go beyond such needs would still risk to be criminalised.

Limiting “basic human needs” and family members

The redraft further limits the scope of humanitarian exemptions in relation to “basic human needs” and “family members”, by defining both concepts in restrictive ways.

On “basic human needs”, the amended recital 7 would clarify that these only include food, personal hygiene and a place to stay, and ensuring that people are not put “in a state of degradation incompatible with human dignity.”

On “family members”, the text introduces a further limitation to recital 7, narrowing down the definition of family members (who would be exempt from criminalisation) only to spouses or unmarried partners in a stable relationship, parents, children and siblings.

Removal of public instigation offence

The Commission’s proposal includes the offence of “publicly instigating” irregular entry, transit, or stay, a move that was sharply criticised by UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, amongst others.

The Special Rapporteur highlighted the serious risk that this provision would be used against civil society organisations and have a chilling effect on the much-needed provision of information and services to migrants.

The presidency redraft deletes this offence. Member states had previously raised concerns about the proposal, with the German delegation commenting that “this affects freedom of expression and possibly also freedom of the press. This should be avoided.”

New joint study by European refugee and migrant rights’ networks ECRE and PICUM finds that EU funds for border management are being used to build harmful infrastructure to control external borders, leading to human rights violations. Crucial information on the assessment of such programmes and how the Commission addressed risks of rights violations was only accessible for this research through freedom of information requests.

The study focuses on the Border Management and Visa Instrument (BMVI), which boasts a 6.2 billion euros budget for 2021 – 2027 to fund equipment, personnel capacity, infrastructures, and technology to be used at the EU’s external borders. Overall, member states have so far received 4 billion euros, an increase of 45% compared to the resources received under the Internal Security Fund – Borders & Visa for 2014 – 2020.

Despite the European Commission ruling out the possibility to use these funds to build fences and walls, we find that the BMVI can already support measures that may disproportionately impact the rights of migrants and refugees. For example, some countries are using BMVI funding for border surveillance technology to either complement or replace physical surveillance.

Key examples:

• Estonia will spend 2 million euros on mobile remote sensing systems to increase border surveillance in areas “where it is not economically feasible to build a permanent infrastructure”.
• Poland aims to “reduce the physical surveillance of the border” by investing in light-detecting systems on watch towers, alarm systems, portable thermal and night vision devices, and motion-activated security cameras at the borders with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
• Croatia, Lithuania, Poland and Spain have acquired or are planning to acquire sniffer dogs to help border guards in patrolling borders and chasing and apprehending people who have crossed the border. In Croatia, dogs have already been used to threaten and bite migrants to push them back to the border.
• Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania and Slovakia will invest in new vehicles equipped with integrated thermal imaging cameras, satellite communication, and x-ray identification systems, with off-road capabilities. In Lithuania, EU resources will allow the purchase of a stationary search detector for persons hidden in vehicles.
• Croatia, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Spain are planning to purchase vehicles for transporting migrants apprehended at the borders to police outposts and facilitate their expulsion to neighbouring countries. This practice constitutes “internal pushbacks” to other member states in informal procedures which have been found illegal by courts in Italy, Slovenia and Austria.
• Hungary’s strategy includes integrating artificial intelligence into vehicles for ground and air reconnaissance operations, potentially involving the employment of drones and other unpiloted vehicles. Greece and Estonia will also use drones and other unpiloted aircraft to expand their aerial surveillance capacity.
• Despite continuously documented challenging conditions of reception centres, Greece is using BMVI resources to run the hotspots on the islands and Cyprus is using BMVI funding to operate the first reception centre in Pournara (just outside Nicosia). Greece is also the country receiving the largest proportion of BMVI resources in absolute terms, with more than 1 billion euros, despite multiple European Court of Human Rights condemnations and continuous reports of persisting degrading conditions, prison-like conditions and restriction of movements in the state-managed centres. Some of these concerns were confirmed by the European Commission’s decision to launch an infringement procedure against the reception conditions in the hotspots in January 2023.
• The BMVI can also finance measures targeting support for people with vulnerabilities and international applicants. This may include procedures for the identification of vulnerable persons and unaccompanied children, information provision to and referral of people in need of international protection and victims of human trafficking, as well as the development of integrated child protection systems. However, the research found that 0.04% of the national programmes (around 1.3 million euros) is devoted to assistance and protection priorities (Croatia and Finland).

Monitoring and evaluation

Member states monitor the implementation of the BMVI programme through dedicated national monitoring committees, which should include experts in fundamental rights like civil society organisations, national human rights institutions, and potentially the EU Fundamental Rights Agency. But our research finds that civil society organisations are often underrepresented in monitoring committees and are not given the means to contribute meaningfully.

The Commission plays a key role in assessing the programmes’ compliance with fundamental rights. However, only thanks to requests for access to documents were we able to see that the Commission had questioned several national programmes during the programming phase, including on lack of access to asylum procedures in Greece, reception and detention conditions in Cyprus and Greece, allegations of pushbacks and discrimination issues in Poland, and deficiencies in judicial independence in Hungary.

What remains unclear is how the Commission came to eventually approve all programmes following murky exchanges with the member states in question. The European Parliament criticised this lack of transparency in the assessment process and initiated a lawsuit against the Commission concerning its decision to disburse over 10 billion euros of EU funds to Hungary, including BMVI funding.

Chiara Catelli, Policy Officer at ECRE and PICUM, said: “The European Commission’s refusal to allow financing of walls and fences is a fig leaf to cover other harmful measures that border funds can already support in member states. Our research finds that BMVI funding is used for an increasingly complex and digitalised system of border surveillance, forming an interconnected web of controls which harms people who come to the EU’s borders.”

“The EU and its member states must ensure that they respect the fundamental rights of people at the borders, including their protection from refoulement, inhuman or degrading treatment and right to life, as well as their often neglected right to access legal support and legal remedy.”

As the EU Council decided on 13 June to prolong temporary protection for people displaced by the war in Ukraine until March 2026, over 130 civil society organisations call on the EU to go beyond temporary renewals and adopt a common, future-proof approach that would lead to long-term residence and that would prevent millions of people in the EU from becoming undocumented.

Temporary protection (as foreseen in the EU Temporary Protection Directive) allows millions of displaced people to reside, work, study and access health care and social protection in the EU. But one-year renewals (which are dependent on decisions taken by the EU Council), leave people in uncertainty about future prospects.

By focusing specifically on one-year renewals of temporary protection, little attention is paid to future scenarios where temporary protection might end, for instance if there is no longer a majority of member states supporting such renewals.

The Temporary Protection Directive foresees that once its protection regime ends, people are channelled into national asylum or migration procedures. But this comes with risks for both displaced people and national administrations. National administrations would risk being overwhelmed by a sudden surge in requests for permits on other grounds, including asylum. Beneficiaries of temporary protection would risk spending months in uncertainty, with less rights than those granted by temporary protection. For instance, a person seeking asylum is often not able to work in the first six months as they wait for the result of their asylum claim.

Because requirements for asylum, work and other residence permits are more stringent than those for temporary protection, and because of lengthy procedures and understaffed administrations, many would risk becoming undocumented.

The signatories urge the EU to propose timely, coordinated, collective and future-proof options for the transition out of temporary protection. This future-proof solution must grant the same level of rights as temporary protection but should last longer and give access to long-term residence permits.

Quotes

Laetitia Van der Vennet, Senior Advocacy Officer, Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, said: “Failing to think about scenarios once temporary protection officially ends means that millions of people might fall through the cracks of bureaucracy and become undocumented. We need the EU to adopt a common permit that grants at least the same rights as temporary protection, lasts for at least two years and gives people access to longer-term residence in the EU”.

Katharine Woolrych, Advocacy Specialist, HIAS Europe, said: “A one-year extension of the TPD is a welcome move to ensure displaced people have continued access to status and rights. In parallel however we urgently need EU leadership to avoid an uncoordinated transition out of temporary protection. Perpetual renewals of “temporary” protection simply kick the can down the road.”

Ganna Dudinska, Senior Policy Advisor, International Rescue Committee, said: “While we welcome the decision to extend the temporary protection regime for one year to offer some predictability to displaced people, it does not provide a longer-term solution. The policymakers at the EU and national level should use this momentum to develop and offer displaced persons clear pathways to durability taking into consideration the specific needs of the most vulnerable individuals.”

As EU election results come in, the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), and others have warned politicians against conceding ground to an extreme right bloc seeking to further erode human rights and the rule of law.

In a linked briefing, PICUM has highlighted how right and far-right parties have pledged to increase human rights violations across Europe, with migrants and racialised people bearing the brunt. This includes: 

• Extending a foreign policy that funds regimes outside Europe in return for violent border control on the EU’s behalf. This threatens migrant and refugee lives, whilst risking putting Europe at the mercy of violent authoritarians and eroding its moral leadership on the rule of law. 
• Increasing both EU and member state overreach in mass surveillance and policing; including through tripling the size of EU border agency Frontex, whose disgraced former director Fabrice Leggeri  is now an MEP for France’s far-right National Rally. 
• Increasing deals with countries outside the EU to process claims for protection in breach of international law.

Most Europeans did not support the far-right. But further concessions to the far-right, as signalled by Austria’s Chancellor, risks further electoral costs to mainstream parties. Tougher migration legislation (like that adopted in France and Germany), proposals by some Scandinavian governments (Sweden and Finland) to report undocumented migrants, as well as the EU Migration Pact, have all failed to stop the rise of the far-right, and may even fuel it. Research published earlier this year has also demonstrated the costs of concession for social democrats. 

Quotes

Michele Levoy, Director of PICUM: 

“Werefuse to accept a cynical EU that undermines its own values and interests by funding regimes that harm people seeking safety and opportunity and takes resources away from social investment and pours them into border management.”

“Together we must join forces for a compassionate Europe that addresses the many genuine emergencies we face collectively, from deepening inequalities to a looming climate disaster. It is time for all of us across the continent to direct our energies towards building a society we all can live and thrive in.”

Giulia Messmer, spokesperson for Sea-Watch (search and rescue NGO):

“European migration politics is already more right-wing than it has ever been. The individual right to asylum is effectively abolished and human rights violations at the external borders are a legalized system.” 

“The new EU Parliament will capitalize on this and have unseen opportunities to deprive people on the move of their rights. If liberal parties such as the Social Democrats do not want to be mere stooges for the new European fascism, right now is the time for a change of course.”

Isabelle Chopin, Director of the Migration Policy Group:

“The new reality of a stronger presence of far-right forces in the EP means noticeable threats towards advancing policies of inclusion and respect for human rights.”

“The new European Parliament must reiterate its commitment to the fundamental values and principles of equality and non-discrimination and ensure they are given a central place in the work programme of the new European Commission.”

Tineke Strik, MEP:

“The rise of the far-right in Europe means the democratic majority in the European Parliament must come together even stronger in defence of our Union’s fundamental values. The far-right’s playbook of scapegoating minorities, portraying asylum seekers as threats, and cracking down on institutions meant to uphold the Rule of Law is an existential threat to everything the EU stands for. This election outcome requires extra vigilance from all EU institutions. It is key to keep the pressure on the centre right parties not to open the door to the far right, and to give true meaning to the European values. The Parliament must at the same time increase the pressure on a new Commission to prioritise upholding the Rule of Law and fundamental rights and hold Member States accountable. Simultaneously, the Council must form a united front against these rising anti-EU tendencies and the European Parliament’s function of scrutinizing the Commission and defending the democratic voice of EU citizens will become ever-more important. I am personally more determined than ever to continue the fight back against this tide; to do everything in my power to ensure that Europe is a safe, dignified, fundamental-rights-compliant and inclusive home to us all.”

Ysé El Bouhali Bouchet, International Migration Officer at CCFD-Terre Solidaire:

“In 2023 alone, over 110 persons died or went missing in the desert between Tunisia and Libya as a result of the externalisation policies conducted by the EU and its member States. These policies, increasingly adopted with various third countries, pose a direct threat to the human rights of people on the move.
More than ever, it is essential that the new European Parliament fulfill its role in safeguarding the fundamental freedoms and human rights, in particular in the field of international migration cooperation.”