6 1 NO CHILD SHOULD BE STATELESS THE ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN INSTITUTIONS Both the European Union and the Council of Europe and their respective Member States have expressed their commitment to ending statelessness, including for children in migration, and have made some progress towards addressing childhood statelessness. Whilst the competence to decide on the conditions for acquisition and loss of nationality lies with Member States, European institutions still have an important role to play in ensuring that children in migration realise their right to acquire a nationality. In the case of the European Union, in line with the European Parliament Resolution on the Protection of Children in Migration, the European Commission can and should promote every child’s right to a nationality, with a view to ending the risk of statelessness.8 The development of the European Commission’s Comprehensive Child Rights Strategy 9 provides an opportunity to address statelessness among children in migration and promote every child’s right to a nationality in the Commission’s child rights activities. The European Migration Network’s Statelessness Platform plays an important role in facilitating the sharing of information and good practices on statelessness among EU Member States, including the prevention of statelessness among children in migration.10 The EU External Action Service also supports important work to prevent child statelessness outside of the EU, including through the resourcing of projects in partner countries to strengthen civil registration systems and promote birth registration in its development cooperation activities. The development of a new Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy (2020-2024) provides an opportunity to build on this work and the previous Action Plan, to continue addressing the issue of statelessness in relations with non-EU countries and preventing statelessness as a result of conflict, displacement and State succession.11 FIRST TIME ASYLUM APPLICATIONS IN THE EU BY CHILDREN RECORDED AS STATELESS OR OF UNKNOWN NATIONALITY 7,620 Source: UNHCR/UNICEF, Advocacy Brief: Refugee and migrant response in Europe 6,395 6,445 Stateless Unknown nationality 4,315 3,995 3,270 3,115 3,085 2,180 1,390 1,225 505 2010 635 2011 1,420 1,640 975 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017