The Commission is proposing to establish a European Border and Coast Guard and also to introduce systematic checks against relevant databases for all people entering and exiting the Schengen area.

During this workshop, day-to-day making and unmaking of borders will be investigated from the perspective of history, policy making, surveillance and control, contestation and human agency.

Justice and Home Affairs Ministers met in Brussels to discuss how to strengthen the following measures, inter alia: EU Passenger Name Record Directive, controls of external borders, information sharing and law enforcement cooperation.

The European Commission collects views and opinions, as well as ideas and knowledge, to elaborate a revised Smart Borders Package.

Today, the European Commission launched a public consultation on the "Smart Borders Package", one of the priorities included in the European Agenda on Migration. All citizens (EU nationals and non-EU nationals) and organisations are invited to contribute.

A 10 point action plan of the immediate actions has been presented by Commissioner Avramopoulos and received the full backing of Foreign and Interior Ministers.

On Sunday, 15 March the project on Smart Borders Pilot reached the next milestone - the execution phase – in Lisbon Airport, Portugal.

On 20 January, the Belgian Association for foreigners’ rights organizes a training on the topic “What protection for seriously ill persons following M’Bodj and Abdida case-law?”.

In a strategic Communication adopted today, the Commission examines how the implementation and development of the common visa policy could help growth in the EU by facilitating travel opportunities for third country nationals willing to visit the EU.

In view of the new legal framework and the interest taken by civil society in the EU's management of external borders, including its fundamental rights dimension, the Ombudsman seeks to clarify, by an own-initiative inquiry, the implementation by Frontex of its fundamental rights obligations.

The annual conference on the Schengen area (Academy of European Law) intents to provide legal practitioners with an in-depth analysis of the European Commission's proposed Regulation on the establishment of an evaluation and monitoring mechanism to verify the application of the Schengen acquis.

On 30 June 2012 the Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the European Union, taking over the Danish Presidency, presented its 6 months programme. Asylum, Migration and Borders is one of the priorities of the Cyprus Presidency's Operational Programme.

Based on judgement in case C-83/12 Minh Koa Vo, a Member State may impose criminal penalties for aiding illegal immigration when the persons who have entered the Union territory, national of non member countries, hold visas fraudulently obtained but not yet annulled.

The Ministers responsible for asylum and migration of Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom met in Brussels on 7 March 2012 to discuss measures in the field of combating illegal immigration