#TimeToDeliverMigrationEU No.23_ International Migrants day 2021

Migration is normal. It has always been here. It always will be here.

People move. They move for work, for love, to reunite families and sometimes to move to escape risk to life and liberty.

Migration into the European Union is also normal. In 2020, about 2.25 million first residence permits were issued in the EU, compared to nearly 3 million in 2019. Without migration, the European population would have shrunk by half a million. People come here to live, to work, to love: the facts show that migration works. Migration is a solution, not a problem.

What we need is to manage migration better together.

Migration management is really about the system that allows the above to function.

The more functional the system, the fairer it will seem, and be.

Arriving in an irregular and dangerous way is a problem.

But the people themselves who arrive are not.

Instrumentalising and luring people to enter the EU irregularly is a problem.

But the people themselves who are lured are not.

Secondary movement of irregularly moving migrants from one Member State to another is a problem.

But the people who do this are not.

The barriers to integration are a problem but the people who face those barriers are not.

On international migrants day we celebrate the contribution of migrants.

To European culture, to European societies, to European economy and to Europe’s future.

We have to do better on migration management.

We have to Europeanise our migration policy.

We should start by recognising across Europe, that the people themselves are not the problem.

Migrants are human beings like you and me.

Learn more about our migration and asylum proposals here.

 

#TimetoDeliverMigrationEU 

This blog outlines the benefits of the proposals on migration tabled by the European Commission on 23 September 2020. For more detail on the New Pact on Migration and Asylum see below.

For More information

New Pact on Migration and Asylum | European Commission (europa.eu)

Resettlement recommendation

Commissioner Johansson’s blog: The situation at the EU-Belarus border in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland – an update

Commissioner Johansson’s speech at the High Level Forum on Resettlement, 9 July 2021

Commissioner Johansson’s blog: More legal pathways to the EU

DG Migration and Home Affairs website: Resettlement and other pathways to protection