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Position paper on instrumentalisation of migration - cover
Copyright FRA
23
July
2025

Countering the instrumentalisation of migrants and refugees and respecting fundamental rights

This position paper examines how the EU can counter the instrumentalisation of migrants while also upholding fundamental rights. Instrumentalisation refers to countries outside the EU using migration to exert political pressure. This position paper defines the phenomenon, provides examples, and outlines legal obligations under EU law. It provides legal analysis and warns that some responses risk undermining fundamental rights at the EU’s external borders, including the right to asylum. To counter instrumentalisation and uphold fundamental rights, the position paper proposes practical measures for Member States to take, such as sanctions, border controls, and cooperation with private operators.


Conclusions


  1. FRA’s Guidance on investigating alleged ill-treatment at borderssuggests concrete steps to promote effective national investigations, including ways to enhance their transparency, to ensure full impartiality and independence of the investigating body from the body involved in the incident and to allow victims’ participation or secure evidence.
  2. The implementation of the pact on migration and asylum offers an opportunity to address ineffective judicial protection. Article10 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1356 introducing the screening of third-country nationals at the external borders expressly obliges Member States to adopt relevant provisions to investigate allegations of non-respect for fundamental rights in relation to the screening. Member States must ensure, where appropriate, referral for the initiation of civil or criminal justice proceedings in cases of failure to respect or to enforce fundamental rights, in accordance with national law.
  3. Although this provision concerns alleged violations that emerge during the fundamental rights monitoring of the screening, it is likely that monitors will be confronted with information and evidence of incidents that concern migrants’ apprehension or their rescue at sea. When setting up their national mechanisms to monitor fundamental rights under the pact on migration and asylum, Member States should ensure that designated monitoring bodies are allowed to trigger investigations and to monitor their progress, also when they concern events reported during their monitoring of the screening, but which occurred prior to the screening itself. The European Commission should remain vigilant to this.