19/06/2006 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
On the eve of World Refugee Day, Mevlüt Cavusoglu, PACE's Chair of the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population released the following statement: “Member states of the Council of Europe must re-examine what are becoming “fortress policies” towards refugees and asylum seekers. The number of refugees in Europe fell by 15 percent last year, according to statistics from UNHCR. While this is in part due to an improvement in conditions in a number of countries of origin of refugees and asylum seekers, it is also due to an increasingly fortress approach by states towards these persons."
16/06/2006 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
Leo Platvoet (Netherlands, UEL), rapporteur on missing persons in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, has warned of the dangers of “politicising” the issue of missing persons. “It is important to treat this issue of missing persons as a humanitarian and human rights matter,” he told a press conference in Baku, following a visit to all three countries, during which he met the families of missing persons.
16/05/2006 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
Members of the Assembly’s Sub-committee on Refugees will take part in this seminar, in Lisbon on 18-19 May, on the theme “Co-development and democracy: the socio-political role of migrants”, which looks at co-development policies in relation to democracy, human rights, diasporas and refugees. It is organised by PACE's Migration Committee and other Council bodies in partnership with the Portuguese Parliament and the Gulbenkian Foundation, and will be opened by the Speaker of the Portuguese Parliament Jaime José Matos da Gama.
21/03/2006 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
PACE's Migration Committee has called for "a constant vigil against discrimination, hate speech and stereotyping in the media". In a statement adopted on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the committee said it was particularly worried by the "stereotyping" of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the media. "The portrayal of ‘bogus’ or ‘scrounging’ applicants reinforces prejudices that these are dishonest people out to defraud the system," the parliamentarians said.
21/03/2006 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
"400 000 legal migrant workers have arrived in the United Kingdom within the last 18 months. An estimated 15 million regular and irregular migrants, mainly from former Soviet Republics, are said to currently reside in Russia. Whatever their exact number or status, migrant workers are a reality our governments will have to cope with increasingly in the forthcoming years," PACE rapporteur Doug Henderson (United Kingdom, SOC) said today at a hearing in Brussels on the situation of migrant workers in temporary employment agencies. "Increased mobility, 'open door policies' towards new EU member states as applied in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Ireland, together with the new CIS visa-free regime will create new employment partners in Europe. Therefore it becomes crucial to regulate temporary work as well as service provision," he added.
20/03/2006 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
A hearing on the situation of migrant workers in temporary employment agencies, organised by the Assembly’s Migration Committee, will take place in Brussels on Tuesday 21 March. The hearing, in the framework of a coming report by Doug Henderson (United Kingdom, SOC), will look at case studies of migrant workers in Ireland, and from Russia and Ukraine, with the participation of trade union and employment agency representatives.
09/12/2005 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
In a statement adopted today during its meeting in Paris, PACE's Migration Committee expressed its deep concern over the way in which accelerated asylum procedures are developing in Europe: "Accelerated procedures, leading to allegations of ‘refoulement’ of asylum seekers, are increasingly used across Europe," it said.
14/10/2005 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
Parliamentarians from the Council of Europe and OSCE as well as members of the European Parliament will take part in a seminar on the situation of refugees and displaced persons in the region of the Stability Pact for South-East Europe, taking place in Skopje on 17 and 18 October 2005. As well as receiving an overview of the situation in the region, participants will discuss the problems of re-integrating internally displaced persons and refugees, the danger of explosive devices and the fate of missing persons.
20/09/2005 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
Parliamentarians from the Council of Europe and from Kazakhstan said at the end of a three-day meeting in Almaty that closer regional co-operation should be developed to achieve "better conditions for orderly migration management, with respect for human rights and dignity". Adopting a final declaration, participants in the "First Euro-Asian Parliamentary Forum on Migration" pledged to increase co-operation on migration law and submit new initiatives to governments in the Euro-Asian region. They agreed to convene a second forum within two years.
13/09/2005 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
The First Euro-Asian Parliamentary Forum on Migration, jointly organised by the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Migration Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), is to take place in Almaty, Kazakhstan, from 15 to 17 September 2005. The forum will bring together parliamentarians from the Council of Europe, Kazakhstan and other central Asian republics such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan with migration experts.
30/06/2005 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
The Sub-Committee on Refugees of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) held a seminar on population displacement in the southern Caucasus in Baku on 4 July. The event was attended by political representatives, specialists and representatives of international organisations. The seminar discussed aid to refugees and their legal protection, hostage-taking and disappearances, and trafficking in human beings. From 1 to 3 July, Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold ( Switzerland , SOC), Chair of the PACE Sub-Committee on Refugees, and Boriss Cilevics (Latvia , SOC), rapporteur on the refugee situation in the region, visited refugee camps at Fizuli, Bilasuvar, Saatly and Sabirabad (Azerbaijan ). The rapporteur has already visited Armenia and Georgia , in March of this year.
20/06/2005 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
"We do not open our hearts and purses enough for refugees, and their rights are all too often forgotten," said the Chair of PACE’s Refugees Sub-committee Ruth Gaby Vermot-Mangold (Switzerland, SOC), speaking on World Refugee Day. She added: "It is absolutely essential that Council of Europe member states deal much more closely with this issue than they are doing today. Being a refugee is dramatic for any individual, for children and for families."