EMN study into the follow-up by EU Member States on the European Commission’s recommendations for improved policies for children in migration in Europe.
EMN report, two-pager EMN NL | Children in migration
Report: 'Children in migration 2021-2022 - An overview'
5 July 2024
Study period – 2021–2022
Participating EU Member States – Austria (AT), Belgium (BE), Bulgaria (BG), Cyprus (CY), Czechia (CZ), Germany (DE), Estonia (EE), Greece (EL), Spain (ES), Finland (FI), France (FR), Croatia (HR), Hungary (HU), Ireland (IE), Italy (IT), Latvia (LV), Luxembourg (LU), Lithuania (LT), Malta (MT), the Netherlands (NL), Poland (PL), Portugal (PT), Sweden (SE), Slovenia (SI), Slovakia (SK)
Participating EMN Observer Countries – Norway (NO); Georgia (GE), Moldova (MD)
Background and scope
In 2017, the European Commission issued a number of recommendations to EU Member States to better protect and support children in migration in Europe. Each year, the EMN maps the progress made by Member States in implementing these recommendations and the new policy measures introduced for this purpose.
As categories of children in migration, the EMN follows the European Commission’s 2017 classification:
- Accompanied minors, families with children;
- Separated minors;
- Unaccompanied minors, including minors:
- who are registered within the asylum system;
- who do not apply for asylum but are registered for other migration procedures;
- who do not apply for asylum and fall outside the asylum system, other migration procedures and the child protection system.
The latter two groups differ but may also overlap. Member States may also use different descriptions and definitions. Finland, for example, considers a minor who applies for asylum and is accompanied by adult family members to be an unaccompanied minor migrant.
In addition to minors who applied for asylum, more than 1.5 million children from Ukraine arrived in the EU and Norway in 2022. However, this group falls under the Temporary Protection Directive and is therefore outside the scope of this study. The application of the Temporary Protection Directive for children has been examined in the EMN Annual Report on Migration and Asylum 2022.
Publications EMN
- EMN Inform: 'Children in migration 2021-2022 - An overview', 5 July 2024
