External dimension of asylum and migration policies

Burden-sharing and good integration policies are key, UN Special Adviser Karen AbuZayd told MEPs ahead of a global summit on refugee and migrant flows.
Migration crisis: beyond Europe © European Parliament

This subject file seeks to provide Members, political groups and other stakeholders with an easy access to the relevant documents of the European institutions and UN organisations as well as in-house summaries and analyses.

In the context of the refugee and migration crisis, the Commission has presented a European Agenda for Migration in 2015 which included proposals for four areas of action:
- Reducing the incentives for irregular migration
- Border management - saving lives and securing external borders
- Europe's duty to protect: a strong common asylum policy
- A new policy on legal migration
As it was confirmed in the LIBE report on "The situation in the Mediterranean and a holistic approach to migration", these four areas afford actions inside the European Union, like the reform of the Common European Asylum System, or a revision of the Blue Card Directive for attracting skilled workers. However, there is also a need for external action, which increasingly influences internal policies of the Union. Examples are visa, return and readmission policies, the EU-Turkey statement, and the new partnership framework for the cooperation with third countries in the area of migration.
European Commission documents