New Border Technologies

The EMN National Contact Point of Portugal held a conference on the subject of “Innovation on the borders: New technologies for upcoming migration”.

The Conference was held in Lisbon on 29th November, and it gathered Portuguese migration experts and members of the European Migration Network from different EMN Member States.

Representatives of the Ministry of Interior of Croatia and the Croatian EMN National Contact Point also attended the conference.

Carlos Matos Moreira, the Director of the Portuguese Migration and Border Services, held the introductory speech. Magnus Ovilius, the Chair of the European Migration Network, spoke next, and noted the importance of EMN as a source of reliable information for making political decisions, very relevant in light of today’s wide dissemination of false/misleading information regarding migration and asylum in public arena. The question of migration is now more important than ever, and the European Commission is supporting the Member States in handling the challenge of migration, especially countries on the external border of EU.

After that, Maria Jose Ribeiro, from the Migration and Border Services of the European Commission (also a National Coordinator of the Portuguese EMN National Contact Point), held her presentation on the work of European Migration Network.

Next speaker was Alfonso Sommarribas from Luxembourg University, who is also the National contact point of EMN for Luxembourg. During the presentation he stated that EMN is working on studies regarding various complex subjects on which no data is available, although the knowledge on these subjects is essential for making informed decisions about further actions. The advantage of EMN over other research projects is that it provides the most recent and reliable data in the area of migration and asylum.

In the second part of the conference, concrete technologies currently used on Portuguese border crossings and future border controls were discussed.

The day before the Conference was held, a meeting by the Return Experts Working Group, which is part of EMN, was held. Representative of the Ministry of Interior participated in the closed and open part of this meeting, while the representatives of the National Contact Points participated in the part that was open to a wider circle of experts.