On implementing EU-Turkey agreement

Standard Operating Procedures implementing the mechanism for resettlement from Turkey to the EU as set out in the EU-Turkey Statement of 18 March 2016 EU-Turkey refugee deal: staff shortages and rights concerns pose twin threat / Fears grow over refugee safety with EU returns plan set to take effect / Greece insists refugee deportations will […]

On debates re: European burden sharing

17-18.03.2016: European Council Conclusions; UNHCR response 15.03.2016: “Later, this month, [Grandi] will issue an appeal for member states [of the UN] to accept at least 10 percent of Syria’s refugees. That’s 400,000 people who need to be resettled, including about 170,000 whom nations have already promised to take,” UN Refugee Chief: Western Leaders Stir Up […]

On bridges

From Feargus O’Sullivan over at Citylab (and The Atlantic) — When the Oresund Bridge (that’s Öresund in Swedish and Øresund in Danish) opened in 2000, it was taken as a harbinger of a bright, borderless future for Europe. Linking Danish Copenhagen with the Swedish city of Malmo across five miles of the Oresund Strait, the […]

On pushback to stronger border controls

Jørgen Carling in NRK discussing smuggling — De som ønsker å søke om asyl, må levere asylsøknaden på grensen. Grensekontrollen i Sverige førte til at antallet asylsøkere til Norge ble halvert på en uke, sier UDI. – Markedet for menneskesmugling ville blitt borte dersom det eksisterte trygge flyruter til Europa. Men da ville flere ha kommet, […]

On regional tensions

Heightened tensions in the region these days — Norway: via IMDi: 18,000 flyktninger må bosettes i 2016 26.11.15: temporary border controls resume in Norway 80.000 migranter og asylsøkere har ankommet Sverige de siste to månedene. Det svenske mottakssystemet er i ferd med å bryte sammen, og onsdag varslet Sverige derfor tiltak for å redusere tilstrømmingen av […]

On refugees after Paris, et al.

General: The science behind why people fear refugees related: what current debates are really about, “what we’re debating right now is really more about American feelings (our sense of security versus our sense of righteousness) than it is about macro-level solutions to their crisis.” from: Europe’s refugee problems, and ours Our reaction to terrorism is […]

On Paris

Hoping for cool heads and warm hearts in the coming days. From German Lopez at Vox — Although the perpetrators of the Paris attacks remain unknown, Jeff Duncan, a Republican congressman from South Carolina, took to Twitter to say that the tragedy shows Europe and America shouldn’t let in Syrian refugees because it might lead to more […]

On meetings: Migration Across the Mediterranean

On 30 October 2015, I attended the Migration across the Mediterranean: Challenges and Solutions meeting hosted at Institutt for samfunnsforskning. The timing of the meeting was spot on: halfway through the budget addendum went public, relating specifically to the discussions of the Ministries represented. Also always interesting to hear discussions of more the technical issues […]

On the Human Costs of Border Control

Hosted by VU University Amsterdam, the Human Costs of Border Control measures changes in migration policies in Europe — On the basis of globalization theories, as well as on the basis of developments in European migration policies, we hypothesize that since 1990 migration law has witnessed a shift from migration control (reactive, focus on concrete individuals) to migration management […]