The EU Facilitation Directive 2002/90/EC, passed in 2002, was introduced to combat migrant smuggling, i.e., helping migrants to enter or stay in a country illegally in exchange for financial or material gain.

Recently, the Commission proposed to amend the Facilitation Directive with the aim to strengthen the EU tools countering migrant smuggling. With this comment, the Meijers Committee raises serious concerns and urges the EU legislator to reform the proposal in order to prevent the criminalisation of humanitarian aid workers. As such, we highlight certain elements of the directive that have left discretion for the Member States for the prosecution of natural and legal persons providing humanitarian aid to migrants in distress and proposals that urgently need further consideration and amendment.