INTRODUCTION

This is a statement of the European Commission in the press release of its communication on the protection of children in migration in April 2017. Swift protection upon arrival and adequate reception conditions for children are proposed along with alternatives to administrative detention and speeding up family tracing and reunification procedures. Similar targets are formulated in the Council of Europe Action Plan on Protecting Refugee and Migrant Children in Europe, which runs from 2017 to 2019. It proposes concrete support to Member States at all stages of the migration process, with a special focus on unaccompanied children. Nevertheless, the UNHCR reported that hundreds of unaccompanied girls and boys, newborn babies and pregnant women were particularly at risk due to the extremely poor reception conditions at the hotspots on the Greek islands. EU Member States return unaccompanied minors to Afghanistan even though children's rights organisations have reported that this country is not safe, especially for minors. The Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) published a report on the immigration detention of children which concludes that detaining children for migration management or asylum reasons is difficult to justify, practically very challenging to implement in line with fundamental rights and clearly not in the child's best interests. However, it is still common practice in most Member States. The content of the Communication of the EC and the Action Plan of the Council of Europe are positive but demonstrate that progress in changes to immigration policy is slow.

This contribution will analyse the protection of minors in European migration law and will contradict the opinion that strong immigration policy considerations would in principle militate in favour of identifying children with the conduct of their parents.