Migration

Through its regional European Migration Policy Programme, the Heinrich Böll Foundation Office Thessaloniki monitors the developments on the ground and advocates for human rights-based migration policies throughout Europe and its Mediterranean neighbors. In times of growing pressure against people on the move and solidary civil society, we insist on building the resilience of all relevant stakeholders through networking opportunities and the creation of cross-border synergies, as well as by strengthening their voices within EU decision-making procedures.

Programme Coordinator
DOSSIER

Externalisation of migration & asylum

More
Recent Articles
The return of returns cover

The return of returns: Europe’s migration debate, ten years after the EU-Turkey deal

ARTICLE
As the European Union moves forward with the Return Regulation, the lessons from Australia, Italy and the EU–Turkey deal are hard to ignore. Externalisation measures including offshore detention have repeatedly proven costly, legally fraught and damaging to human rights, while agreements with third countries often create dependencies and diminish the EU’s authority and influence. 
Chrysiis Katsea
article externalisation surveillance cover

Outsourcing surveillance: The technological side of border externalisation

FEATURE
One of the latest iterations of the border externalisation strategy includes the export of surveillance technologies and border control infrastructure. These tools – ranging from biometric databases and drone systems to border monitoring software – are used not only to track and intercept migrants but also to expand control within partner states, as senior researcher and policy expert, Antonella Napolitano notes in her article.
Antonella Napolitano
Anna Tzortzi externalization

From fast-track asylum to return hubs. The Italy-Albania deal on trial

ARTICLE
The offshore centers for migrants, operating in Albania under Italian jurisdiction, were initially supposed to extraterritorially process asylum requests and speed up returns. After a series of expected legal setbacks by judicial authorities in Italy, the Italian government revised the deal in March 2025 to repurpose the detention facilities in Albania into repatriation centers, turning them into legal gray zones and penal colonies.
Kristina Millona
More articles
Dossiers
Shipwrecked cover

Shipwrecked. Rethinking migration and asylum in Europe

DOSSIER
The complex issue of migration and asylum, in the light of the new EU Pact, was addressed at the major international congress "Shipwrecked. Rethinking migration and asylum in Europe", which we organised in Thessaloniki in June. Over 130 experts from all over the world – activists, lawyers, journalists, academics, politicians, members of civil society organisations – came to a number of alarming conclusions. Find here texts, as well as audio and visual material from the congress.
Recent Media
Lost in a legal maze

Lost in a legal maze

VIDEO SERIES
This video series explores – perhaps for the first time – the legal difficulties and the legal pitfalls faced by asylum seekers in Greece and Europe, within a legal system designed to fail them. Eleven people at different stages of the asylum procedure talk to the camera about their own cases, revealing with their testimonies the lack of coherence in asylum policy, the high degree of arbitrariness and a systematic attempt to discourage them. In collaboration with Equal Legal Aid.
BVMN event final cover

Understanding the New Pact: How the EU is abolishing the right to asylum

VIDEO
Our partner organization Border Violence Monitoring Network recently hosted a webinar titled 'Understanding the Pact: How the EU is Abolishing the Right to Asylum', which we were happy to support. In light of the complexity and intransparency of the reform process, this webinar not only provided much needed elaborations on the proposed changes to the Common European Asylum System, but also the potential implications these would have in different EU Member States. 
More media
Related Publications
Trial monitoring annual report 2025 cover

Trial Monitoring Annual Report 2025

REPORT
Systematic use of pre-trial detention, extremely brief hearings, and inadequate interpretation services are among the key findings of this research by the Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) and Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT), supported by the Heinrich Böll Foundation – Thessaloniki Office. Based on the monitoring of 123 criminal trials in 2025, the report documents serious and recurring fair-trial concerns in the prosecution of people on the move charged with “illegal transport of third-country nationals” in Greece.
Greece Report toolkit cover

Evidence-based action for human rights at borders

TOOLKIT
In the Aegean, contested borders, conflicting statistics, and uneven reporting obscure the human reality of maritime crossings. This Unified Monitoring Toolkit introduces a transparent, standardized method for documenting incidents, enabling researchers, advocates, and policymakers to work with rigorous, comparable data that can be transferred to other EU border regions today.
In defence of defenders

In defence of defenders

PUBLICATION
Migration as well as supporting people in flight is increasingly treated as a criminal act in Europe. This toolkit, created by Border Violence Monitoring Network and Heinrich Böll Stiftung Thessaloniki, seeks to support affected Human Rights Defenders by showing them mechanisms and avenues for help and self-defence in cases of criminalisation at various levels.
All publications

© Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung e.V.
Schumannstraße 8
10117 Berlin
T +49 (30) 285 34-0
F +49 (30) 285 34-109
www.boell.de
info@boell.de