The impact of the pandemic had far-reaching consequences in the EU and was particularly felt in terms of border closures, travel restrictions and the need to introduce sanitary measures to try to bring the virus under control. The EMN and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) series tried to reflect how their Member States mitigated the pandemic's effects on third-country nationals, what implications the pandemic had on admissions to the national territories and how asylum and migration processes were adapted. Additionally, the series looked at specific categories, such as international students, and analysed how Member States' regulation and practices were adapted to mitigate the COVID-related effects on them. 

A few key findings:

• EU Member States and Norway sought to prevent third-country nationals from falling into irregularity;
• To meet labour market needs, continued admission to the territory was ensured for essential occupational sectors;
• In the area of international protection, new tools and processes used in asylum and reception systems in the immediate response to the pandemic emerged as the ‘new normal’;
• As international students were generally subject to the same travel restrictions as other third-country nationals, migration authorities in EU Member States used online procedures for issuance of visa or residence permits;
• Travel restrictions impacted on both the number of return decisions and on the implementation of return in EU Member States and in non-EU OECD countries.

The topics of the separate informs are the following: 

1. Return in COVID-19 times
2. Impact of COVID-19 on remittances 
3. Maintaining labour migration in essential sectors in time of pandemic
4. Impact of COVID-19 on international students
5. Residence permits and unemployment during COVID-19 pandemic