European Council on Refugees and Exiles

European Council on Refugees and Exiles

Founded	1974
Type	Non-profit
Location	Secretariat in Brussels
Services	policy initiatives, research, advocacy, capacity building
Fields	Promote protection and integration of refugees
Members	99 member organisations
Key people	Catherine Woollard (Secretary General)
Website	http://www.ecre.org

Established in 1974, ECRE is a European network of 95 NGOs in 40 European countries. It protects and advances the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and displaced persons. Its diverse membership ranges from large international NGOs with global scope to small organisations of dedicated activists; members work on humanitarian relief, social service provision, legal assistance, litigation, monitoring policy and law, advocacy, and campaigning.

ECRE’s work covers four main activities:

Legal support and strategic litigation

ECRE is a reference for asylum law professionals across Europe, and coordinates the ELENA legal network together with national coordinators in 38 European countries. Our legal support activities are closely connected to the ELENA work and focus on developing various tools for legal professionals in order to assist their litigation and legal counselling work, notably the European Database of Asylum Law, the LEAP Project and Fostering Access to Rights for Migrants, Refugees and Asylum-Seekers in Turkey. Our strategic litigation work aims to achieve legal changes ensuring rights of those seeking international protection or benefiting from it at European and national level through proactive, coordinated and needs-based litigation.

Legal and Policy Research

ECRE conducts comparative research and analysis of asylum law and practice in Europe. One of its core research activities is the Asylum Information Database (AIDA), a database containing information on asylum procedures, reception conditions and detention in 23 European countries. AIDA contains detailed country reports, comparative reports, fact-finding visits investigating important protection gaps, and legal briefings providing focused analysis of key issues of asylum law and policy.

Advocacy

ECRE seeks to influence EU policy and practice on refugee issues. It prepares papers including its recommendations, provides written analysis, and represents the refugee protection sector in policy processes and policy debates. It works on the Common European Asylum System and EU external policies, including the Accession process, development assistance, foreign policy, and the external impact of internal EU asylum policy (e.g. agreements with countries of origin). In addition ECRE has developed extensive expertise in the situation of refugee children (including the unaccompanied). ECRE’s work on the rights of refugee children webpage serves as a hub providing a central online reference point for collection of project information & deliverables related to children from across the membership and information on EU policy.

Communication

ECRE is an established source for journalists. It is regularly quoted in major media outlets and has a large following on social media. In 2014, ECRE conducted its first pan-European media campaign asking for safe and legal access for Syrian refugees.

Member Organisations

List of ECRE member organisations and associate members organisations in alphabetical order.^[1]

ECRE organisational platforms and outlets:

• ECRE website
• ECRE publications
• ECRE Daily Press Review
• ECRE Weekly Bulletin
• ECRE ELENA Weekly Legal Updates
• ECRE Facebook
• ECRE Twitter
• ECRE Board

References

External links

• ECRE Official Site
• Refugee Stories Project