Name : Civil Participation and Monitoring of the Asylum and Migration System
Duration: 9 March 2026 – 8 September 2027 (18 months)
Budget: EUR 118,597.73
Donor: Funded by the Government of the Swiss Confederation through the Swiss-Bulgarian Cooperation Programme under the Civil Engagement and Transparency Mechanism (CETM) 2024–2029
Operator: Consortium BITSP (Balkan Institute for Labour and Social Policy) – BCNL (Bulgarian Center for Not-for-Profit Law) – InnovaBridge
Partners:
Mission Wings: an organization with extensive experience in providing humanitarian, social and psychological assistance, as well as in monitoring and advocacy on the ground and before institutions, with broad expertise in working with vulnerable groups.
As an unofficial (associated) partner without a budget, Jura Humana Foundation is involved – a young organization with expertise in advocacy, dissemination of results and good practices at European and international level.
Short description:
In 2024, the European Union adopted the Pact on Migration and Asylum: new rules for managing migration and for creating a common asylum system in the EU. Bulgaria, as an external border of the EU, has a key role in implementing the new policies. For our country, the Pact means a complete restructuring of the national asylum and migration system.
The project aims to restore and strengthen civic participation in the development and implementation of the new European migration policies in Bulgaria through advocacy and effective monitoring. We aim to pay particular attention to the application of the Pact in the field of expanded forms of administrative detention and potential violations of fundamental rights of asylum seekers and migrants in the context of the procedures introduced by the Pact.
Advocacy is a key tool for civic participation with the goal of creating humane, fair and effective migration policies and legislation, informed by field work with the target groups. Monitoring, in turn, guarantees transparency and accountability in the implementation of the new migration policies. Our goal is for this monitoring not to be merely declarative, but effective and equipped with means of rights protection; therefore, our monitoring activities form the basis not only for the publication of expert content, but also for the preparation of strategic litigation.
