Reacting to the European Parliament’s vote to ratify changes to EU asylum rules that undermine the foundation of refugee protection, Olivia Sundberg Diez, the EU Advocate on Migration and Asylum at Amnesty International, said:
On 30 January, six Italian coastguard and custom officials will go on trial for failing to launch rescue operations which could have prevented a shipwreck that killed more than 90 people near the town of Cutro in southern Italy in February 2023.
Reacting to the agreements between the European Parliament and Council on new EU asylum rules, which undermine the very foundation of refugee protection, Olivia Sundberg Diez, the EU Advocate on Migration and Asylum at Amnesty International said:
Responding to EU home affairs ministers’ position on the EU Return Regulation agreed in Brussels today, Olivia Sundberg Diez, EU Advocate on Migration and Asylum at Amnesty International, said:
Dear African and European leaders,
On 9 November 2025, the European Union (EU) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean states (CELAC) will meet for their biennial EU-CELAC summit in Santa Marta, Colombia. Amnesty International urges the EU and CELAC leaders to seize the opportunity to move beyond rhetoric on long-standing partnership and shared values and interests to take concrete actions on human rights in both regions and worldwide, at a crucial time when human rights are under attack globally.
On 11 March 2025, the European Commission presented a new proposal for a Return Regulation to replace the current Return Directive. Behind the euphemistic name, the proposal outlines coercive, traumatising, and rights-violating measures premised on an imperative of increasing deportation rates. Instead of focusing on protection, housing, healthcare and education, the Regulation is premised on punitive policies, detention centres, deportation and enforcement.
Reacting to today’s ruling by the European Union (EU) Court of Justice (ECJ) that Italy’s rules on designating certain countries of origin as ‘safe’ for people seeking asylum was incompatible with EU law, Adriana Tidona, Migration Researcher at Amnesty International, said:
Ahead of a visit by EU Migration Commissioner Brunner and EU ministers to Libya to discuss migration cooperation on 8 July, Eve Geddie, the Director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office, said:
The EU’s recent proposals in the area of migration and asylum risk seriously undermining people’s access to fair and full asylum procedures in Europe. The European Commission’s recent initiatives appear to be interconnected components of a broader strategy to externalise the bloc’s migration management – these include its proposed revision to EU return or deportation rules put forward in March 2025, its April 2025 EU list of ‘safe countries of origin’ and a revision to the ‘safe third country’ concept in May 2025. With these measures the EU seems to be seeking to further shift responsibility for refugee protection onto countries outside its borders and sidestep legal obligations under the Refugee Convention and EU law.
Responding to the European Commission’s proposal to amend the ‘safe third country’ concept by allowing EU member states to forcibly send people seeking asylum to countries where they have no connection, without the possibility to appeal from the EU, Olivia Sundberg Diez, Amnesty International’s EU Advocate on Migration and Asylum, said:
Two years after the start of the devastating conflict in Sudan, Amnesty International and 12 civil society organizations call on the EU and other international actors to act meaningfully to protect civilians under attack.