Τρίτη 8 Απριλίου 2014

Future eu migration policies and mpc input MPC suggestions for a Post-Stockholm Agenda on Mobility and Migration


 








The MPC is actively taking part in the debate on future priorities to be addressed by European policies in the field of mobility and migration. 
The Stockholm Programme, which framed Home Affairs policies from 2010 to 2014, will indeed soon come to an end and future policy orientations are being discussed. 
Within this framework, the MPC participated in the European Commission – DG Home Affairs consultation on ‘An open and safe Europe – what next?’, providing suggestions for a Post-Stockholm Agenda on Mobility and Migration. 
Professor Philippe Fargues, Director of the MPC, and Professor Philippe De Bruycker, Deputy Director of the MPC, were invited to present their positions at the Stakeholders Conference organised by the European Commission in Brussels on 29 and 30 January 2014
MPC Contribution to DG Home Affairs consultation analyses the migration situation in the European Union and the challenges that will need to be addressed in the coming years – demographic decline, sustainability of welfare systems, ageing of skills, intra-EU mobility, EU preference, irregular migration, EU visa policy, integration, EU solidarity, etc. I
t proposes concrete measures to be included in guidelines in the areas of freedom, security and justice for the period 2014-19.

The MPC at the European Commission’s POLITICALLY.EU event on ‘Europe and Migration Policies’ in Naples, 31 March 2014

The MPC is the scientific partner to the Italian Representation of the European Commission in the upcoming POLITICALLY.EU event on ‘Europe and Migration Policies’, which will take place on 31 March 2014 in Naples, Italy.
This ‘national debate’ will focus on three topics: Migration and Demographic Change; 
Opportunities in the Mediterranean; and Integration and Citizenship. 
It aims to provide an opportunity for discussion at the national level between those responsible for defining a global strategy, those in charge of implementing policy frameworks, experts in the various fields of interest, and representatives of migrants.
The conclusions gathered during the debate will be brought to the attention of the Italian Government and the EU in order to contribute to the definition of a new European agenda for Home Affairs and the development of a consistent Italian strategy.

More Promises but Few Solutions for Europe's Illegal Migrants / By Matina Stevis - April 3, 2014 4:49 p.m. ET-

While the EU has managed to truly integrate its policy-making in some areas, migration remains too divisive.

BRUSSELS—
Thursday marked two milestones in the refugee crisis in Europe's neighborhood: six months since more than 355 African migrants drowned on their way to the Italian island of Lampedusa, and the millionth Syrian refugee registered in Lebanon.
 

Both are reminders that migration remains among the European Union's toughest issues, one that divides the bloc even as humanitarian disasters claim lives by the thousands just outside its borders.

Interactive Graphic

Smuggling, Survival, and Hope in Lampedusa













Almost no EU country has shown a desire to significantly increase its intake of Syrian refugees. Sweden, the only EU state to have promised Syrians permanent residence, has recently sought help from other EU nations, pressured by the economic and political costs of the influx of refugees. 


Meanwhile, countries along Europe's Mediterranean and southeastern borders have been trying to get other nations to bear more of the cost of managing and protecting refugees, but with little success. 


Some 435,000 people applied for asylum in the EU last year, a 36% jump on 2012. Syrians topped the list and almost three times as many Eritreans tried to escape their country as the year before, according to Eurostat, the EU statistics service. 
One out of 10 refugees applied for asylum in Germany, the most populous EU country.


Migrants face vastly different conditions depending on where they end up in the EU.


Spain and Greece take on thousands of illegal migrants each year and governments there say they are doing their best on limited budgets to accommodate them. 
But the two countries have also taken steps to fortify their borders. 


Spain announced earlier this year that it would earmark an extra €2.3 million ($3.2 million) to increase security at Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish enclaves in Morocco. 
In February, Spanish police admitted using rubber bullets to shoot at African migrants trying to swim to Ceuta, and police have also pushed back migrants from a fence that surrounds Melilla, to the dismay of EU institutions and human-rights organizations.



A handout photo released by the Italian Navy taken on March 17 shows migrants standing on a boat during a rescue operation carried out by the Italian Navy near the Italian island of Lampedusa. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images


Greece erected a 10-kilometer-long wall along its northern border with Turkey to deter undocumented migrants from crossing into its territory. 
Dozens of refugees—mainly Syrians—have drowned on their way to Greece just in the past few weeks. 


Meanwhile, Bulgaria has struggled to accommodate the thousands of Syrian refugees arriving there and the situation has threatened to cause a political crisis. 
The government received emergency aid from the EU, but human-rights organizations describe the conditions for asylum seekers as squalid.


The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, has been trying to rally national EU governments to commit more funds to manage migration and to take on more refugees. 
But it has stopped short of calling the situation a crisis, or of defining what constitutes one.


Because of that, the EU hasn't activated its refugee-crisis program, which was created when the bloc opened its doors to thousands fleeing the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s and hasn't been used since. 


Instead, following the Oct. 3 Lampedusa shipwreck the commission convened a task force to look at immediate steps that could be taken to ensure fewer people drown trying to get from North Africa to Europe.
Its few conclusions, presented in early December, have only partly been implemented. (Explore an interactive on smuggling, survival, and hope in Lampedusa.)


European and African leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday said they'd do more to manage migration but didn't spell out exactly what.


European Council President Herman Van Rompuy has said leaders will discuss how to reform the EU immigration system at their meeting in Brussels in June, but several EU officials say no more than pledges to act, rather than a concrete plan of action, should be expected.


"We commit to undertaking concrete actions to respond to challenges of migration and mobility at the appropriate level in a spirit of partnership, shared responsibility and cooperation," 
EU and African leaders said in a joint declaration at the end of their two-day meeting here.


To some observers who saw the EU-Africa summit as a prime opportunity to present a concrete plan, the declaration was a disappointment.


"The EU, in cooperation with Africa, must radically shake up its approach and wake up to the need for real action over words in order to protect people and save lives," 
 Nicolas Beger, a director at Amnesty International in Brussels, said in an email. 
"More search and rescue is needed, safer routes must be created, and the outsourcing of European migration control policies to non-EU countries must end." 


While the EU has managed to truly integrate its policy-making and rules in some areas like competition policy, migration remains too divisive.


Poorer countries, especially those along the bloc's borders, want the richer ones to accept a system that distributes migrants across the bloc. 
They also want much more EU help in guarding their borders. Richer states largely reject these ideas. 


The dysfunctions of the current arrangement mean that migrants end up paying smugglers to travel illegally across the EU to reach countries where they are most likely to get jobs and have good prospects for asylum.


The policy vacuum created as countries struggle to agree leads to profits for the smugglers, trouble for the migrants and disgruntlement in both richer and poorer EU states.


Still, given how divisive migration has become in national politics across Europe, it's hard to see how EU member states can set aside their differences to reach a new compromise that works better, or less badly, for all.


—Laurence Norman
contributed to this article.

Write to Matina Stevis at 
matina.stevis@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303847804579479614143375256 

Empowering Care Empowering girls in residential care against violence against women

3755_empowering_care_doclead
Document authors Casals Mar Camarasa, Sanglas Núria Fancoli
Zones European Union
Type Report / Study / Data
Date of publication 2013
Document main thematic Child Protection/ Related Topic
Total pages 54
Documents :
Empowering girls in residential care against violence against women is a 2 year European project funded by the Daphne III Program of the European Commission lasting from January 2013 till December 2014. 
Empowering Care is developed, under the coordination of SURT
Fundació de Dones (Catalonia), by a multidisciplinary and transnational partnership comprising organisations from 
Bulgaria (Animus Association), 
Cyprus (Mediterranean Institute for Gender Studies), 
Finland (University of Oulu) and 
Italy (Tampep).

Empowering care project aims, on the one hand, at increasing knowledge on the prevalence and characteristics of experiences of violence and abused against girls aged 14-18* in residential care* and under the legal responsibility of public authorities in 5 EU Member States: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, Italy and Catalonia/Spain. 

On the other hand, the project aims at empowering young girls in residential care to protect and prevent themselves and their peers from violence.

In order to reach these aims, first of all, the partnership of the project carried out a qualitative research on the experiences of violence and abuse, perceptions of gender roles and intimate relationships of 14-18 aged girls in residential care in Catalonia, Bulgaria, Italy, Finland and Cyprus. Secondly, and on the basis of the comparative research results, an empowerment program will be elaborated and pilot tested with girls in residential care centres in the partner countries. 

As a result of these activities, a Manual for professionals will be published and disseminated among professionals.

As said, the first activity of the Empowering Care project has been the conduction of a EU-wide qualitative research on the prevalence and characteristics of experiences of different types of violence and abuse against girls in residential care, both before and after entering care institutions, as well as their beliefs regarding gender roles and stereotypes, and sexual and affective relationships. 

Each partner of the consortium has carried out the research in its country. With the results obtained with the analysis of the fieldwork, each organisation elaborated a country research report. 

The reports are available, both in English and in each national language (Bulgarian, Catalan, Greek, Finnish and Italian), in the website of the project (www.empoweringcare.eu). 

This Comparative report has been elaborated on the basis of the country research reports and constitutes the EU-wide product of this first project activity.

The first chapter of the Comparative report includes the Theoretical Framework of the project and it sets the key definitions and approach to Empowering Care topics.

The second chapter on the Legal and Political Framework describes the legal and policy contexts concerning VAW and children’s rights at international, European and country levels.

The third chapter presents the methodological framework set up by the partnership and used during the research. In this third chapter the feminist approach of the Empowering Care research is defined. 

Moreover, the target groups, the selection criteria as well as the ethical issues that were taken into account are also explained. 

Finally, chapter 3 also describes the methods and techniques used in the research as well as the fieldwork process in each country.

The fourth chapter contains the Comparative Analysis of the fieldwork carried out in the partner countries with girls in residential care centres and with professionals.

Finally, there is a last chapter that summarises the main findings of the research.