The Red Cross EU Office’s new publication sets the issue of forced migration and displacement within the specific context of the EU’s migration and border control policies. It breaks down the process of externalisation into five main characteristics and identifies the associated human costs. The Red Cross EU Office booklet features:

• Tightening of border controls 
• Interdiction at sea and at borders 
• Returning migrants to countries of origin and transit 
• Encouraging other states to take responsibility for protection 
• Migration related detention 

The Booklet "Shifting Borders – Externalising migrant vulnerabilities and rights?" intends to move the focus away from the prevailing political concerns used at times of regulating the mobility of people, towards a discussion on the acute vulnerabilities of migrants. Each chapter considers the humanitarian implications of different aspects of externalisation and presents a selection of National Red Cross Societies’ activities which aim to address emerging and evolving migrant vulnerabilities. The publication also examines initiatives of other organisations that actively deliver assistance and protection to migrants. Significant humanitarian consequences are developing both within and outside of the EU as a result of externalisation. EU commitments and compliance with fundamental rights principles, including the right to international protection and the principle of non refoulement, are in this way put at risk. As a result, one of the biggest challenges facing the EU is the need to advance the debate on protected entry to set up safe, secure and legal ways to access protection in the EU. European National Red Cross Societies are scrutinizing these developments and have identified policy recommendations in their Position Paper "Legal Avenues to Access International Protection in the EU” for corrective action to be taken in the EU.

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