Thousands of undocumented migrants are homeless at the EU’s external borders, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey and Belarus, said the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Migration Committee.
The committee adopted a draft resolution based on a report by Lord Alexander Dundee (United Kingdom, EC/DA) that is expected to be debated at PACE’s plenary session.
The PACE Migration Committee urged member states of the CoE and the EU to strengthen and increase the voluntary transfer of migrants in need of humanitarian protection or asylum seekers to third countries for the purposes of determining their migration status, focusing in particular on vulnerable people in Cyprus, Italy, Malta and Spain.
The committee also welcomed an emergency program established by the EU Commission in April 2020 for the voluntary relocation of asylum seekers from Greece to other European countries.
“All member States should offer assistance to these countries when such emergencies arise, in a spirit of solidarity,” the committee said.
The committee asked member states to “register, provide accommodation and take note of asylum requests from such persons and seek possibilities for voluntary relocation and resettlement to other countries when humanitarian emergencies so dictate.”
The Migration Committee includes three sub-committees: Refugee and Migrant Children and Young People; Diasporas and Integration; and Migrant Smuggling and Trafficking in Human Beings.