“Private sponsored safe and legal passage”
Presentation of the Handbook on the implementing procedures of the “Humanitarian Corridors”
In the last 5 years, Europe has witnessed the arrival of millions of people fleeing their countries that are at war. It is unprecedented in scale and magnitude. The ‘refugee crisis’ was and still is an existential issue for the European Union, which is a project that has essentially seen the light to unite and herald solidarity amongst peoples and nations on the continent in the aftermath of World War II.
Ascertaining the EU is struggling on how best to address the issue in a coherent and humane ‘institutional’ way, a plethora of grassroots initiatives have seen the light.
The Humanitarian Corridors represent such an original example of private sponsorship (self-financed by the promoters and partner organizations) for people coming to Europe from Third Countries and in need of international protection. They are selected based on EU vulnerability criteria and the organizers of their passage finance their travel documents which are the so-called ‘humanitarian visas.’ granted by the receiving states through their embassies. The initiative is based on written agreements (MOUs) signed by the Community of Sant’Egidio – jointly with partner organizations of the civil society – and public authorities in different EU countries such as Italy, France and Belgium.
Two years after the inception of the initiative of the ‘humanitarian corridors’, the Community of Sant’Egidio, together with its partners would like to engage in a stocktaking exercise: What are the benefits of such an approach? How can it be made better and more efficient? Can it be replicated? How? By whom? When?