EU Immigration Portal

Summary

Building the EU Immigration Portal: The European Commission Web Portal on Immigration

The EU Immigration Portal serves as a first point of entry to reliable, practical and up-to-date information on immigration issues. It provides useful basic information written in user-friendly language, and gives rapid and direct access to relevant external websites for further details

Description

The Migration Policy Group worked with the European Commission on the design and development of the Portal over a period of three years. We organised stakeholder consultations, designed the information format, gathered all information and presented national immigration law in a comparable way, working closely with our network of immigration law practitioners.

The Portal is live as of November 2011 and can be accessed here: http://ec.europa.eu/immigration/

Immigration is receiving a lot of attention across Europe. The EU 2004 Hague Programme and many other policy papers call for sharing information on legal routes to migrate to Europe. It is for this reason that an EU Immigration Portal was created.

The European Commission's Directorate General for Justice, Freedom and Security (now DG Home) commissioned Unisys and the Migration Policy Group to develop and manage the Immigration Portal, with Bilbomática.

Beneficiaries

The EU Immigration Portal is addressed to prospective migrants wishing to obtain information on migration to the European Union. The content is therefore written in user-friendly language that is easy to read, and that avoids jargon and technical terms as far as possible.

The Portal helps prospective migrants to:

• Get direct and rapid access to practical information
• Find their way in the complex world of European admission rules and procedures
• Identify job and study opportunities
• Find information on the rights of non-EU citizens who are in the EU
• Find out how the EU protects victims of trafficking
• Be informed on the risks of entering and staying in the EU without authorisation
• Be rapidly informed on specific immigration issues
• Benefit from a vast stakeholder directory

The Immigration Portal is useful for:

• Immigrant intermediary organisations
• Immigration authorities
• Immigration law experts
• Employment services
• National authorities
• Civil society
• The public at large

Content of the Portal

The information appears in two languages, English and French, and covers the following areas:

1. Admission of non-EU citizens to an EU country

Users can find out whether they need a visa to come to an EU country, the type of visa they should apply for and how to get one.

Those that want to come for a longer stay can find basic information on the conditions to fulfil and procedures to follow to be admitted to each EU country as a,

• worker (employed, self-employed, highly-skilled, seasonal and other categories of worker)
• student
• researcher
• family member

They can also find out about the rights non-EU citizens can enjoy during their stay.

2. Risks and rights of an irregular stay

Users can find information on how the EU protects victims of trafficking, how to legally cross an EU border and what the rights and risks of an irregular stay are.

3. EU and national immigration policies and law

The Portal summarises the often complex EU and national immigration rules and procedures. The EU and national approaches are explained by showing who is responsible for what.

4. Stakeholder Directory

A stakeholder directory facilitates the search for further relevant information and to stimulate co‐operation among stakeholders. The Directory refers to:

• EU institutions
• National ministries in Member States and third countries
• Implementing authorities
• Employment agencies
• Non‐Governmental Organisations
• Migrants' organisations
• Diaspora organisations
• Training institutions
• International institutions