The drive to return as many migrants as possible increasingly became a key feature of EU and member state foreign policy. In October the EU and Afghanistan signed the co-operation agreement “Joint Way Forward”. Signed on the back of a donor conference, the agreement obliged Afghanistan to collaborate in the return of failed Afghan asylum-seekers (asylum recognition rates for Afghans fell in most countries despite growing insecurity in the country), including unaccompanied minors. The central place of migration management in EU foreign policy was explicitly laid out in another document, the “Partnership Framework”, endorsed by the European Council in June. The plan proposed using aid, trade and other funds to pressure countries to reduce the number of migrants reaching EU shores, while negotiating border control co-operation and re-admission agreements including with serial human rights abusing countries. The drive to externalize Europe’s migration management went hand in glove with measures to restrict access to asylum and related benefits nationally. The trend was particularly observable in previously generous Nordic countries: Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway all introduced regressive amendments to their asylum legislation, the last with the intention to ensure that Norway had “the strictest refugee policy in Europe”. Finland, Sweden and Denmark, as well as Germany, all restricted or delayed access to family reunification for refugees. States closest to the EU main external borders adopted the strictest measures. In January, the Austrian government announced a cap of 37,500 asylum applications for the year. In April, an amendment to the Asylum Act granted the government the power to declare an emergency in the event of the arrival of large numbers of asylum-seekers, triggering the accelerated processing of applications at the border and the immediate return, without reasoned motivation, of those rejected. The deterioration of Europe’s asylum system hit its lowest point in Hungary. After 42 constructing a fence along the majority of its border with Serbia in September 2015 and amending its asylum legislation, in 2016 the Hungarian government ushered in a set of measures which resulted in violent pushbacks at the border with Serbia, unlawful detentions inside the country and poor living conditions for those waiting at the border. While the Hungarian government spent millions of euros on a xenophobic advertising campaign in support of its ultimately failed referendum to reject the EU relocation scheme, refugees were left to languish. Infringement proceedings initiated by the European Commission for the multiple breaches of EU and international asylum law remained open at the end of the year. At the opposite end of Europe, in France, the build-up of asylum-seekers and migrants at the “Jungle” camp in Calais and its dismantling in October became as much a symbol of Europe’s failed migration policies as the bursting camps on the Greek islands Lesvos and Chios and the makeshift shelters in front of Hungary’s razor wire fences. Germany’s impressive efforts to shelter and process the asylum applications of the almost one million people who arrived in Germany the year before was perhaps the only positive government response to the “refugee crisis” in Europe. Overall, it was left to ordinary citizens to show the solidarity their leaders were lacking. In countless reception centres across Europe, tens of thousands of people showed again and again that there was another side to the increasingly toxic migration debate by welcoming and supporting refugees and migrants. COUNTER-TERROR AND SECURITY Over a hundred people were killed and many more injured in violent attacks in France, Belgium and Germany. They were shot by armed men, blown up by suicide bombers and deliberately run over as they walked in the street. Protecting the right to life and enabling people to live, to move and to think freely became an increasingly pressing concern for governments across Europe. However, many responded to the challenge Amnesty International Report 2016/17