How the New EU Facilitation Directive Furthers the Criminalisation of Migrants and

Related Organizations

Table of Contents

• Introduction 4
• 1. Migrants will still risk years of prison for steering boats or having to undertake perilous journeys with their children 6
• 1.1. The broad reference to what constitutes financial and material benefit risks allowing the criminalisation of mutual aid and the provision of services 6
• 1.2. New type of offence for likelihood of causing serious harm, even in absence of financial or material benefit 7
• 1.3. The provision exempting family members from criminalisation is not binding 8
• 1.4. The exclusive focus on return procedures is harmful and contradicts ECtHR jurisprudence 8
• 2. Human rights defenders will continue facing harassment and persecution 9
• 2.1. The provision on non-criminalisation of human rights defenders is not binding and excessively narrow 9
• 2.2. NGOs can face severe sanctions and exclusion from public funding 11
• 2.3. New investigative tools likely to violate right to privacy 11
• 3. New provisions could have a chilling effect on the provision of information and services to migrants, and facilitate censorship 12
• 3.1. New offence of “public instigating” irregular migration could target the provision of information and services to migrants 12
• 3.2. Information on migrants’ rights and services could be deleted and accounts blocked 12
• 4. The new EU obsession on “instrumentalisation” creeps in as an aggravated circumstance 13
• 5. The proposal was published without an impact assessment, in violation of the Commission’s Better Regulation Guidelines 13
• Conclusions and Recommendations 14
• Annex 1: Comparison of the 2000 UN Smuggling Protocol, the 2002 Facilitation Directive, the 2023 proposal for a new Facilitation Directive and PICUM recommendations 15