Speech: Remarks by Commissioner Dimitris Avramopolous at the round table on Addressing vulnerabilities of refugees and migrants on their journeys from their countries of origin to their countries of arrival at the UN Migration Summit

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am immensely pleased to be here with you today - an opportunity which I believe is essential if we want to step up our collaboration and engagement to truly address the refugee crisis in a global way.

In Europe in 2015, as you all know, around 1 million refugees and migrants arrived.

Since the beginning of this year, more than 360 000 migrants already reached Europe's shores. They all arrived after a perilous journey.

Most - if not all - were in the hands of unscrupulous smugglers before embarking on unsafe boats to cross the Mediterranean.

Most - if not all - were stripped of their dignity and fundamental rights during their journey while crossing the desert or the mountains.

What we notice is that the number of obvious vulnerable migrants arriving to Europe that require special treatment is increasing.

This year, minors make up more than a third and almost a fifth of arrivals in Greece and Italy respectively.

Women and young girls are particularly at risk too, especially in Greece where more than 40% of those pre-registered are women.

For those who are forcibly displaced, our position is simple: we need to make their journey to a safe place shorter and easier.

That is the best way to reduce the risk for violations and abuses of their human rights.

First, those seeking protection should find a safe place as close as possible to their country of origin - even in a safe part of their country, if it is possible.

The EU with its Member States is the leading humanitarian and development actor.

Our humanitarian assistance to refugees worldwide has been considerably increased, from EUR 1.35 billion in 2015 to 1.7 EUR billion in 2016.

A significant part of this funding is dedicated to vulnerable migrants, in particular children and women.

In 2015, the European Union gave over 150 million euros to projects related to child protection.

This year, the Commission is quadrupling its humanitarian assistance to education in emergencies.

In 2015, the Commission allocated almost EUR 11.5 million of its humanitarian aid funding for addressing gender-based violence response in Syria and the neighbouring countries.

In Turkey, we will finance projects worth 3 billion euros that will directly support almost 3 million of refugees, and especially the most vulnerable, to access education and healthcare, and address gender based violence.

For example, we have supported the establishment of 7 women centres in Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir.

Beyond the immediate needs, the European Union is providing financial and technical assistance to countries in Northern Africa and in the Horn of Africa, to develop their national asylum systems and to fight smuggling. The second way to better protect and assist vulnerable migrants, is through resettlement.

In this context, the European Union is implementing since last year the first EU-wide resettlement scheme of 22 000 places.

Over the past year, more than 10 000 migrants in need of international protection have already been resettled.

The European Union is now setting up a European resettlement framework, to streamline the resettlement procedure towards Europe.

For those migrants that arrive in Europe in an irregular way, the European Union has strengthened the assistance for the most vulnerable.

In parallel, new rules on asylum are currently discussed in Europe, to strengthen the protection of unaccompanied minors and to assess vulnerabilities, and also to ensure swifter family reunification.

With the financial support of the European Union, all Member States have launched programmes to ensure access to health and education to the most vulnerable.

We also finance projects to provide the necessary psychological assistance, especially to women and young girls that have encountered difficult situations during their journey.

Finally, while we try to reduce the perilous journeys at sea, we have to acknowledge that they have not disappeared yet, and that our work continues also there.

All migrants are vulnerable when crossing the high sea in an unstable dingy.

That is why the European Union has several on-going operations of maritime surveillance in the central Mediterranean close to the Libyan coast and in the Aegean Sea close to Turkey, including the support of both EU, but also non-EU actors like NATO.

In the context of these operations, the European Union has saved more than 426,000 lives for both 2015 and 2016 so far.

All of these efforts are part of our comprehensive goal to offer more and safer routes to protection for those who need it.

But as I have said in the beginning - this is not only a European challenge or responsibility.

That is why we look forward to working closely with all countries along the migratory routes, to implement the global compacts agreed today:

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  to develop the necessary structures to assist vulnerable migrants

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  to provide safe havens along those migratory routes

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  and to drastically boost resettlement opportunities worldwide.

SPEECH/16/3121