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Recommendation 2136 (2018)
Human rights impact of the “external dimension” of European Union asylum and migration policy: out of sight, out of rights?
1. The Parliamentary Assembly refers
to its Resolution 2228
(2018) “Human rights impact of the ‘external dimension’
of European Union asylum and migration policy: out of sight, out
of rights?”.
2. The Assembly recalls that the aims of the delegation of migration
control and procedures to countries outside the European Union’s
border are to ease the migratory pressure on member States at the
borders, facilitate resettlement to Europe and regulate migratory
flows, while reducing migrants’ need to undertake long and dangerous
land and sea journeys.
3. In the light of these aims, it emphasises that European countries
must not only invest substantially in reception, protection and
integration of refugees in the region but also show more willingness
to host, resettle and integrate migrants themselves.
4. The Assembly insists that externalisation of border control
and asylum procedures agreed by the European Union or by individual
member States with third countries should be accompanied systematically
by assessments of the impact of such agreements on the human rights
of migrants and guarantees for the protection of migrants’ human
rights under international law, with access to legal redress in
cases of violation.
5. In the light of the above, the Assembly calls on the Committee
of Ministers to:
5.1. instruct the
relevant Council of Europe intergovernmental sector to draft guidelines
for external co-operation on migration with third countries, in
order to ensure that the implementation of this co-operation is
in compliance with the standards of the European Convention on Human
Rights (ETS No. 5) and other legal instruments of the Council of
Europe, as well as the United Nations 1951 Convention relating to
the Status of Refugees;
5.2. support member States in defining the extent of their
responsibility for possible human rights violations in third countries
as an indirect or direct result of external co-operation on migration;
5.3. ensure follow-up to the Copenhagen Declaration on the
reform of the European Convention on Human Rights system adopted
by the Council of Europe member States on 13 April 2018, in particular by
actively promoting ratification by the European Union of the European
Convention on Human Rights.