European Trade Union Committee for Education

In relation to the European Union’s recent “Progress report on the Implementation of the European Agenda on Migration” and a summary of its EU Crisis Management Tools, the European Commission has published its proposal for a “Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the creation of a European network of immigration liaison officers”. The proposal states that it is consistent with other EU policies in relation to migration, specifically: Prevention of and countering of migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings, Return of illegally staying third-country nationals, Integrated Border Management, Legal migration and Integration, External relations policy of the Union and Data protection. The proposal document also claims to have consulted in regards to this policy with stakeholders, primarily Immigration Liaison Officers and their managers, as well as national authorities in Member States and international organisations such as the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

In regards to the actual creation of the network, the proposal states “This Regulation lays down rules to improve the coordination of immigration liaison officers deployed to third countries by Member States, the Commission and the Union Agencies through the creation of a European network of immigration liaison officers.” It also proposes the creation of a Steering Board made up of one representative of each Member State, two representatives of the Commission, one representative of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, one representative of Europol and one representative of European Union Asylum Agency, with a Commission representative acting as Chair of the Steering Board. The Steering Board will also work with Immigration Liaison Officers to create a secure system for exchanging relevant information and statistics. To assess progress, the following indicators have been proposed:

• Number of joint analytical products delivered by networks of ILOs
• Number of joint deployment of ILOs co-financed from the EU budget
• Improved sharing of information between ILOs' networks and EU Agencies

The proposal comes in light of the EU’s Progress report on migration and their factsheet on Crisis Management Tools. The report calls for additional financial investment from both Member States and the EU in order to support EU action on the external dimensions of migration. The report summarises the situation on migration roots and EU support for managing migration. Specifically in regards to education, the EU has been maintaining support for the Facility for Refugees in Turkey, which provides education and healthcare for hundreds of thousands of refugees and EUR 1 Billion of funding allocated to Syria and Jordan to improve healthcare and education provision amongst Syrian refugees.

As affirmed in previous statements, ETUCE is committed to promoting education as a right for all, including migrants and refugees. The EU and Member States must continue investment in educational provision for migrants and refugees as part of the European Agenda on Migration to ensure that, as so often happens, migrant and refugee children are not left out of education systems without access.

To read ETUCE’s views on Public Consultation on “Legal migration by non-EU Citizens”, click here.

To read ETUCE’s views on Public consultation on "EU funds in the area of migration”, click here.

To read the ETUCE Resolution on “Education Trade Unions on the Refugee Situation in Europe: Promoting Education as the Key to Integration and Inclusion”, click here.