UNHCR makes recommendations to the Belgian and Hungarian Presidencies of the Council of the EU
In a press release published today, the UN Refugee Agency called on Belgium and Hungary to use their 2024 European Union (EU) Presidencies as an opportunity to finalize the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum and to ensure its protection-sensitive implementation.
UNHCR advises the Presidencies to consider the following seven priority elements as key for the last months of the current European mandate and the Belgian and Hungarian Presidencies in 2024:
- Prioritize effective access to territory: providing protection for spontaneous arrivals to the EU and addressing rights violations at the external borders.
- Ensure fair and efficient asylum procedures as well as adequate reception conditions: reforming EU asylum procedures and ensuring border procedures don’t equate de facto detention.
- Strengthen global solidarity and responsibility sharing: establishing more safe pathways and increasing resettlement, prioritizing relocation as a solidarity option.
- Provide assistance to those on the move in order to reduce suffering on dangerous journeys: supporting interventions along key mixed and onward movement routes to the EU.
- Encourage more EU Member States to join resettlement efforts: strengthening resettlement processing mechanisms and reception capacities to ensure that resettlement commitments are protected.
- Develop a comprehensive strategy and action plan to address statelessness within the EU and globally, and review progress towards the implementation of the 2015 Council Conclusions on Statelessness.
- Make EU funding adequate, more agile and responsive: addressing funding gaps and ensuring EU financial resources target thematic areas such as climate and education.
For further information, please read the document below and UNHCR press release.