Latest blog articles

In September 2015 for the second time this year, after a first mobilization of more resources in June 2015 already,[1] the European Commission announced additional financial assistance of €801.3 million from the 2015 EU budget to tackle the current refugee crisis in the European Union (EU).[2]

It took quite a while before the European countries realized and recognized that the influx from asylum-seekers via the Mediterranean Sea and Turkey into the European Union is not just a matter of controlling the outside borders of the Union, but also a humanitarian and human rights issue. Some...

I am sure you have heard that the Bulgarian government built a fence on the Bulgarian – Turkish border and that the ‘refugee crisis’ put the national asylum system to the test. What about the Bulgarian integration policies? Did you know that currently refugees in Bulgaria face ‘zero’ integration...

After months of news about asylum seekers dying in the Mediterranean Sea, weeks of steadily increasing influx of people from the eastern borders of the EU, and witnessing the temporary exit of Germany from the Schengen agreement last weekend, the Maastricht University Faculty of Law has announced...

Refugee crisis and migration may obviously have a lot of different sources. The current refugee crisis in Europe is obviously strongly related to the war in Syria. However, quite often migration and hence a stream of refugees, can also be caused by natural disasters, even by climate change. Some...

We are getting better and better at knowing how to help traumatized children. And how we can prevent childhood trauma. That knowledge is of great importance for refugee children, and not only for them. It would prove very helpful to all children if the gap between what we know and what we do in...

Duo blog by Dersim Yabasun and Alexander Hoogenboom

At the outset of this blog there is reason to underline the value of an effective asylum policy. There is a tendency in some populist media, as well as among some populist politicians, to depict and cast the current humanitarian crisis as largely...

This year we have witnessed an extraordinary and tragic series of events. Hundreds of thousands of migrants have tried to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe. The UN estimates that over 2,500 people have lost their lives in the process. In the last few weeks, the focus has shifted to the EU’s...

On 8 September 2015 State Secretary for Justice and Security Klaas Dijkhoff announced that from now on only refugees who have applied for asylum in a safe place outside the EU would be accepted in the Netherlands. The government wants to put an end to asylum-seekers placing their fate in the hands...

According to the latest numbers of the UNHCR, more than 35,000 persons have crossed the Mediterranean in 2015 and more than 1600 have died. Persons on board of these boats have various reasons to take such dangerous routes.