The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, warns that externalised asylum and migration policies must be carefully designed to avoid serious human rights risks. His report highlights how transferring asylum, return, and border control functions to other countries can expose migrants to torture, arbitrary detention, and collective expulsions. Particular risks arise in the external processing of asylum claims, return procedures including “return hubs,” and outsourcing of border control. The Commissioner calls on states to adopt precautionary approaches, safeguard vulnerable people, and ensure transparency and accountability.

This report reviews data relating to migrants' access to information on their rights in 19 reception and detention facilities of 8 EU Member States, including Belgium. It includes recommendations on how to make information provision effective.

The handbook offers responses to fundamental questions on migration, such as those concerned with its root causes and possible responses in terms of good policies and practices, as well as the challenges.

The key task of the Consultative Forum is to provide advice to Frontex on fundamental rights issues. The Annual Report gives an overview of the activities undertaken by the Consultative Forum in 2013 and contains the main recommendations made to Frontex and its Management Board.

On 4 February 2026, Human Rights Watch published World Report 2026, its annual review of human rights worldwide. In a chapter on the European Union, the report highlights concerns that EU policies and Member State actions may undermine the rights of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. It notes, inter alia, restrictions on access to asylum, measures aimed at increasing removals, and the transfer of responsibility to third countries. The report also draws attention to human rights issues at EU borders and deaths at sea.

On 21 October 2024, the European Ombudsman closed her inquiry on respect for human rights in the context of the EU-Tunisia Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). She concluded, inter alia, that the Commission should set out the criteria on which the suspension of contracts due to violations of human rights in the implementation of EU-funded projects in Tunisia would be based. These criteria should be made public.

In its 2023 annual report, the Federal Institute for Human Rights draws attention, among other things, to the failure of the authorities to enforce the rulings of the Belgian and European courts and tribunals, in particular in the context of the reception crisis. The lack of resources for the judiciary, threats to human rights defenders and weaknesses in the right to information are also underlined.

At the request of the European Ombudsman, an inquiry was launched into the European Commission's approach to ensuring respect for human rights in the EU-Tunisia Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) “on a strategic and global partnership”. This inquiry follows concerns about the absence of a prior human rights impact assessment in the context of the Memorandum.

In its pushback report 2023 published today, the human rights organisation 11.11.11. says there were 346.004 illegal pushbacks of people migrating to Europe in 2023 - that is 947 every day. The organisation used information provided by NGOs, human rights bodies and UN agencies to report this figure.

The Federal Institute is tasked with regularly examining the situation of persons deprived of their liberty through preventive visits, making recommendations to the competent authorities and proposing legislation and verifying its compatibility with international standards.

The EUMAGINE project studied how Europe is perceived from outside the EU, and how these perceptions affect migration aspirations and decisions. A round-up conference is organized on 23 January 2013 in Brussels to present the project's main results and policy considerations.