12/07/2024 Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
In line with the priorities set in the Reykjavík Declaration calling for reinforced action against the smuggling of migrants and as the European Committee on Crime Problems is exploring avenues towards reinforced co-operation between member States, a PACE committee has urged a dual approach to tackling migrant smuggling which focuses on international co-operation to ensure safe and legal migration pathways – and protect the rights of people on the move – while also cracking down on cross-border criminal groups.
Approving a report by Lord Simon Russell (United Kingdom, EC/DA), the Assembly’s Migration Committee said there was “a lack of consistency” in national laws against smuggling, and warned that such laws should never be used to criminalise migrants or people in need of protection and the defenders of their rights.
It called for a new Council of Europe instrument to complement the UN’s Palermo Protocol, which would follow its definition of smuggling, spell out that migrants are not themselves perpetrators of smuggling, and clarify that this crime necessarily involves the smuggler “making a material or non-material profit”.
Meanwhile, the parliamentarians warned the EU against defining the crime of smuggling too widely when revising its existing Directive in this field, and said a proposal for a regulation enhancing police co-operation was premature and could lead to “conflicting norms” in EU member states.