The EU Migration and Asylum Pact: Rights, control or solidarity?

This seminar will focus on the EU’s new Migration and Asylum Pact, examining the legal grey areas and humanitarian dilemmas the pact creates for Europe and for Denmark. With the pact coming into force this month, the speakers will be asking what this major reform means in practice. This includes taking a close look at the human and legal consequences of the pact, asking:

What happens to asylum seekers who face the EU’s stricter screening procedures and registration systems at the external borders?

What are the real implications of detention and new surveillance technology?

And how can human rights and accountability be safeguarded when asylum seekers are transferred to third countries via so-called return hubs?

The speakers will be: our director at MOBILE, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen; Cecilia Vejby Andersen, head of the EU asylum team at DRC Danish Refugee Council; Maja Kathrine Rettrup Mørch, Senior Communications and Advocacy Consultant at the Danish Red Cross; Ida Marie Savio Vammen, senior researcher and head of the Migration, Climate and Conflict Unit at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS); and Ahlam Chemlali, head of the Centre for Coercion and Accountability (CECA) at Aalborg University.

The programme is as follows:

16.00–16.05     Welcome from Steffen Jensen.

16.05–16.25     Keynote: Stopgap measures, reforms and the new experimental approach in European migration policy, Thomas Gammeltoft Hansen.

16.25–17.20     Panel discussion: The EU’s Migration and Asylum Pact in practice: Legal grey areas and humanitarian implications, Cecilia Vejby Andersen, Maja Kathrine Rettrup Mørch, Ahlam Chemlali, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen. Moderated by Ida Marie Savio Vammen.

17.20–17.45     Q&A

Practical information:

The seminar will be held in Danish. Attendance is free of charge, but registration is required via this registration form. The seminar will take place at Aalborg University Copenhagen, A. C. Meyers Vænge 15, 2450 Copenhagen SV, in Auditorium 1.008 in Building A.

MOBILE has organised this event in collaboration with CECA –  the Centre for Coercion and Accountability, and DIIS – the Danish Institute for International Studies.

More information is available here.