From 27 to 30 September 2021, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), held its autumn Session, during which PACE told Belarus to ‘stop the instrumentalisation’ of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, in particular those in a vulnerable situation, at its borders. The Assembly also called for a “stop facilitating travel to Belarus of third country nationals under false pretences of tourism”. In a resolution based on a report by Anne-Mari Virolainen (Finland, EPP/CD) following an urgent debate, the Assembly said the migration and asylum pressures at the border of Belarus with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland had been “orchestrated by the Belarusian authorities in response to EU sanctions against Belarus imposed for harsh violations of human rights”. The parliamentarians also called on the authorities of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to provide access to asylum procedures, refrain from pushbacks into Belarus, and safeguard the rights of those seeking to enter their territory.
During the session, the Parliamentary Assembly also adopted Resolution 2403 (2021) on the situation in Afghanistan: consequences for Europe and the region, by rapporteur Sir Tony Lloyd (UK, SOC) following a debate and Resolution 2391 (2021) and Recommendation 2209 on the Humanitarian consequences of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan / Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by rapporteur Paul Gavan (Ireland UEL / GUE) following a debate.
On 30 September 2021, there was a welcome ceremony at the Council of Europe for Little Amal, a 3.5m-tall, animated puppet of a nine-year-old refugee from Syria, the latest stop on her 8,000-kilometre journey across the continent to raise awareness of the situation of child refugees. “The Walk” is Amal’s epic voyage from the Syrian border to the United Kingdom in search of her mother. Participants in the ceremony included PACE President Rik Daems, Council of Europe Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić, Secretary General of the Parliamentary Assembly Despina Chatzivassiliou-Tsovilis, Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs of North Macedonia Nikola Dimitrov, the President of the European Court of Human Rights Roberto Spano, Deputy Secretary General Bjørn Berge, Special Representative of the Secretary General on Migration and Refugees, Ambassador Drahoslav Štefánek, the Chairperson of the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons Pierre-Alain Fridez and Parliamentary Assembly members, accompanied by a class of schoolchildren from the European School in Strasbourg.”
On 7 September 2021, the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons adopted a draft resolution based on the report Voluntary relocation of migrants in need of humanitarian protection and voluntary resettlement of refugees by Lord Alexander Dundee (United Kingdom, EC/DA). The PACE Migration Committee wants the member states of the Council of Europe and the European Union (EU) to strengthen and increase the voluntary transfer of migrants in need of humanitarian protection or asylum seekers to third countries for the purposes of determining their migration status, focusing in particular on vulnerable people in Cyprus, Italy, Malta and Spain. The Committee also recalled that thousands of undocumented migrants are homeless at the EU's external borders, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey and Belarus. Member States should "register, provide accommodation and take note of asylum requests from such persons and seek possibilities for voluntary relocation and resettlement to other countries when humanitarian emergencies so dictate. “All member States should offer assistance to these countries when such emergencies arise, in a spirit of solidarity” the Committee stressed.
The Committee also unanimously adopted a report by Lord Griffiths (UK, SOC) on the "70th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention: the Council of Europe and the international protection of refugees".