Joint statement: EU: Stop Criminalising Migration in the Facilitator’s Package Law

11/03/2025
News
EU

Today, we’ve issued a joint statement with 113 other organisations to condemn the Facilitator’s Package.

The Package, issued in 2023, consists of a:

Directive: a set of minimum rules across member states to prevent and combat the facilitation of unauthorised entry, transit and stay within the EU.
Regulation: enhances police cooperation and Europol’s role in preventing and combating migrant smuggling and human

In reality, the Facilitator’s Package fails to protect people on the move, and instead criminalises them, capitalising on the “right-wing politicisation of migration.”

We’re calling on the EU to:

Amend the facilitation directive to protect migrants
Reject the Europol Regulation in its entirety

Read the full statement below:

When the European Commission published the Facilitator’s Package in 2023, its stated goal was to protect migrants from being exploited by “professional smugglers” and undertaking dangerous journeys to Europe.

In reality, the Package’s proposed Facilitation Directive criminalises migrants and human rights defenders instead of targeting organised crime networks, and the Europol Regulation unlawfully expands the agency’s powers and resources by capitalising on right-wing politicisation of migration.

It ignores the EU’s role in restricting regular routes for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, and contributing to environmental, political and economic instability in their home countries – forcing them to seek life-threatening alternatives.

The EU must:

Amend the facilitation directive to protect migrants by including:
- A clear legal definition of smuggling as a for-profit activity aligned with existing international standards.
- An explicit and legally binding humanitarian exemption that protects migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, their families, and human rights defenders from being charged with smuggling.
Reject the Europol Regulation in its entirety
- Unlawful – the proposal expands the agency’s powers beyond its ‘cooperation’ mandate and above Member State competencies
- Unsafe – the proposed increase in Europol’s mass data collection mandate risks widespread violations of privacy and fundamental rights, as denounced by the European Data Protection Supervisor. It also pushes data sharing with known human rights violators Frontex and third countries
- Unsubstantiated – the proposal was presented without a proper impact assessment, going against the EU’s own Better Regulation Guidelines. The European Parliament’s substitute impact assessment calls into question the effectiveness and lawfulness of the proposal.

The Package is simply a continuation of the erosion of the right to seek asylum and the criminalisation of human movement laid down by the 2024 Migration and Asylum Pact. It feeds into right-wing fear mongering around migration and promotes a criminal law response to a social phenomenon.

The EU continues to pour millions into violent criminal law approaches to migration that do not work. Public resources must instead be reallocated towards a system that meets the care and protection needs of all people, rather than targeting the most vulnerable.

Quotes:

“EU border policies create the criminal conditions under which people resort to networks in order to move. Lawmakers of the Facilitators Package face a political choice. They can direct the powers of the criminal law, policy, funding and personnel toward the purpose of punishing people in need, or focus on protecting people on the move and those in solidarity with them. The choice is simple.”

– Sarah Chander, Director, Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice

“The fight against so-called ‘migrant smuggling’ is an insidious pretext to unlawfully expand Europol’s powers. Turning Europol’s NSA-style surveillance capabilities against migrants and human right defenders will only lead to more pushbacks, violence and deaths at the EU borders. So not only it is hypocritical, but also extremely harmful. The only solution is the rejection of this Europol reform proposal.”

– Chloé Berthélémy, EDRi

“The rage of European member states to punish people for seeking safety is out of control. Thousands are arrested and thrown in jail each year, often in trials that fail to uphold legal standards, simply for trying to exercise their right to asylum. But more repression won’t put an end to the dying at sea. The only way to avoid irregular entrance, is regular entrance and freedom of movement for all.”

– Dorothee Krämer, Advocacy Officer for Sea-Watch

Additional resources

Analysis and recommendations from:

Initiated by: Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice and #ProtectNotSurveil Coalition (Access Now, Algorithm Watch, Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN), EDRi, European Network Against Racism (ENAR), Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice, EuroMed Rights, European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL), Homo Digitalis, Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), Privacy International, Statewatch)

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