On 23 January 2019, the European Commission presented for the first time a report about the risks of investor citizenship and residence schemes operated by several EU Member States.
The report is mainly aimed to identify such risks these schemes imply for the EU Member States, especially in connection with money laundering, tax evasion, corruption and security.
In this field, lack of transparency and collaboration among Member States critically enhance the issue.
For further information about the report, see at https://bit.ly/2T9TC9M
On 9th December 2018, the European Commission and the OECD (International Migration Division) released the report "Settling In 2018: Indicators of Immigrant Integration".
The report provides for a comprehensive international comparison of integration outcomes of immigrants and their children. The report’s target is represented by EU and OECD countries, as well as specific non-OECD G20 countries.
Moreover, the report is mainly aimed to provide policy makers with benchmarks so that they can relate results in their own country with those of other countries and identify good practices.
To find out more about the Report, see at: https://bit.ly/2Ey5aPJ
A call for project proposals on security research across 16 different topics is open until 22 August 2019. It makes available €233.36 million in total for projects working on protecting the infrastructure of Europe, increasing the disaster resilience of societies, fighting crime and terrorism, securing external borders, as well as improving digital security and data protection.
The proposals that have passed the evaluation will be known by mid-January 2020, and the grant agreements with the project teams should be signed by end of April 2020.
For more information please visit the European Commission website.
On 4 December 2018, the European Commission presented its Second Report on the progress made in the fight against trafficking in human beings.
The report is aimed to highlight the main trends in trafficking in human beings and to outline remaining challenges that the EU and Member States must address as a matter of priority.
Nowadays, women and girls still continue to be most vulnerable to trafficking (68%) while children represent 23% of registered victims. Trafficking for sexual exploitation remains the most widespread form (56%), followed by trafficking for labor exploitation (26%).
Even if the cross-border cooperation in this field was significantly improved, the phenomenon is continuing to evolve. As a result, the Commission outlines a number of priority areas for Member States to focus on to effectively combat trafficking in human beings.
For further information, see at https://bit.ly/2PiBPuk