Glossary

The EMN has been established via Council Decision 2008/381/EC and is financially supported by the European Union.

The purpose of this glossary is inter alia to improve comparability between EU Member States through the use and common understanding of the terms and definitions contained herein.

The glossary is intended to serve as a useful reference document for EMN National Contact Points (EMN NCPs) and their national network members, as well as for other practitioners in the field of asylum and migration.

The glossary has been developed by the European Migration Network (EMN) within the context of a Glossary and Thesaurus Working Group. It is the first stage of the development of this glossary, since other terms will be introduced, refinements made to definitions, and updates published accordingly.

The glossary shall also be used in the development of an EMN Thesaurus, the purpose of which is to facilitate structured searching of the documents contained within the EMN’s Information Exchange System.

The EMN would like to acknowledge the extensive efforts of the working group and its appreciation for the permission given by other entities (ILO, IOM, OECD, UN, the EU Democracy Observatory and the THESIM project) to the use of terms and definitions which they had developed previously and which are duly referenced in the glossary.