Settling In 2018 – a joint EU-OECD report on integration of migrants

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 Europe that Protects: Commission calls for continued action to eradicate trafficking in human beings

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

A Europe that Protects: The Commission reports on progress made on travel document security

Some weeks ago, the European Commission reported about the progresses made in the field of the 2016 Action Plan on travel document fraud. 

The EC Report on this shows all the good progresses achieved over the last year and a half in all four key areas of the identity infrastructure identified in the Action Plan: registration of identity, issuance of documents, document production and document control.

Furthermore, the Action Plan has an important role in improving the visibility of the issue of travel document security. Thus, EU Member States have improved information exchange on national identity practices and agreed to enhance security features for uniform visas and residence permits.

For more information please visit the European Commission website.

Signature of the Joint Action Plan on Counter-Terrorism for the Western Balkans

The European Commission has recently signed the Joint Action Plan on Counter-Terrorism for the Western Balkans. Thus, during the EU-Western Balkans Ministerial Forum on Justice and Home affairs, the representatives of the six Western Balkans partners and, for the EU, Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, agreed upon the necessity to take a step forward for the common security and the protection of citizens. 

The direct result of the Action Plan is a robust, joint framework for countering terrorism, calling for ambitious and concrete actions to achieve the most important counter-terrorism objectives, including the prevention and countering of radicalisation, effective information exchange etc. 

For more information please visit the European Commission website.

Managing migration: Commission expands on disembarkation and controlled centre concepts

The European Commission has recently started to expand on disembarkation and controlled centre concepts. Furthermore, the EC took a step towards a first outline of the possible way to the establishment of regional disembarkation arrangements with third countries. 

The disembarkation arrangements should work in parallel with the development of controlled centres in the EU: together, both concepts should surely help to ensure a truly shared regional responsibility in responding to complex migration challenges.

Specifically, concerning the “controlled centres”, the most important aim is to improve the orderly and effective processing of those disembarked in the European Union. In this field, the first step should be to separate between individuals in need of international protection, and irregular migrants with no right to remain in the EU, while speeding up returns. These centres should be managed by the host Member State with the full cooperation of the EU and the European Agencies.

You can find more info on the European Commission website.

CALL: Trusted digital solutions and cybersecurity in health and care

This call aims at multidisciplinary technologies and solutions in health and care with a focus on cybersecurity to assure data privacy, security and protection of health and care infrastructures. It addresses the need for secure and user-driven ICT-based solutions in early risk detection and interventions with big data approaches that enable aggregation of a variety of new and existing data sources such as medical records, registries, social platforms and other environmental, physiological and behavioural data, including data from large scale pilots on smart living environments. This call will contribute to the Focus Areas on 'Digitising and transforming European industry and services' and 'Boosting the effectiveness of the Security Union'.

For more information visit the European Commission website.