Some weeks ago, the European Commission reported about the progresses made in the field of the 2016 Action Plan on travel document fraud.
The EC Report on this shows all the good progresses achieved over the last year and a half in all four key areas of the identity infrastructure identified in the Action Plan: registration of identity, issuance of documents, document production and document control.
Furthermore, the Action Plan has an important role in improving the visibility of the issue of travel document security. Thus, EU Member States have improved information exchange on national identity practices and agreed to enhance security features for uniform visas and residence permits.
For more information please visit the European Commission website.
The European Commission has recently signed the Joint Action Plan on Counter-Terrorism for the Western Balkans. Thus, during the EU-Western Balkans Ministerial Forum on Justice and Home affairs, the representatives of the six Western Balkans partners and, for the EU, Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, agreed upon the necessity to take a step forward for the common security and the protection of citizens.
The direct result of the Action Plan is a robust, joint framework for countering terrorism, calling for ambitious and concrete actions to achieve the most important counter-terrorism objectives, including the prevention and countering of radicalisation, effective information exchange etc.
For more information please visit the European Commission website.
The European Commission has recently started to expand on disembarkation and controlled centre concepts. Furthermore, the EC took a step towards a first outline of the possible way to the establishment of regional disembarkation arrangements with third countries.
The disembarkation arrangements should work in parallel with the development of controlled centres in the EU: together, both concepts should surely help to ensure a truly shared regional responsibility in responding to complex migration challenges.
Specifically, concerning the “controlled centres”, the most important aim is to improve the orderly and effective processing of those disembarked in the European Union. In this field, the first step should be to separate between individuals in need of international protection, and irregular migrants with no right to remain in the EU, while speeding up returns. These centres should be managed by the host Member State with the full cooperation of the EU and the European Agencies.
You can find more info on the European Commission website.