Kompass-newsletter No. 144 - 05/2026
In May and June – “No Border Lasts Forever” – book presentations by We’ll Come United +++ 18–21 May in The Hague: Event and trial against torturers from Libya +++ 30 May at Frankfurt Airport: Demonstration against deportations +++ Pro Asyl interview on Hungary +++ Regularisation in Spain +++ New brochure on Transborder Summer Camp III +++ Upcoming events: 12–14 June in Jena: Entgrenzt – first conference on migration law for lawyers; 12–14 June in Offenbach: Right to the City Forum; 17–19 June in Hamburg: Youth without Borders at the Conference of Interior Ministers; 4 July in Erfurt: “widersetzen” against the AfD party conference; 4–8 August in Cotonou, Benin: World Social Forum
Dear friends,
“The moment of opportunity and responsibility” is the title given by the Helsinki Committee in Budapest to a brief, sigh-of-relief statement issued the day after Orbán’s defeat at the polls on 12 April 2026. Although “only” a conservative party is now coming to power in Hungary, a member of the Committee aptly described the joy at the change in an interview with Pro Asyl: “It is so impressive to realise that it is actually possible to defeat an autocratic regime. I would never have dared to believe it.”
New hope is also emerging in Italy. On 22–23 March 2026, Meloni suffered a heavy defeat in the referendum on the so-called judicial reform. This was followed by the first resignations within her government, and with a view to the autumn 2027 elections, the situation appears much more open again.
At the same time, regularisation is currently being implemented in Spain. The campaign alliance there has managed to secure further easing of the conditions, and Welcome to Europe has compiled the most important practical information on this, see https://w2eu.info/en/countries/spain/extraordinary-regularization-2026
We would also like to draw your attention to a special event taking place in May. From 19 to 21 May 2026, a Libyan torturer will stand trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity. The court will first decide which charges are admissible and, in particular, whether killings, enslavement, torture and rape of Black migrants will be included in the proceedings. Refugees in Libya, together with the ECCHR, are striving not only to support the victims and witnesses but also to ensure maximum public attention. This is the very first time that the torture camps in Libya have been addressed at this level, and so there is both an opportunity and a necessity to denounce the EU’s complicity in the push-back and pull-back regime during these proceedings.
Finally, some good news from the transnational network. The brochure documenting and summarising the Transborder Summer Camp held near Nantes in August 2025 is now complete. From the introduction: “…680 participants from around 100 groups and networks, 8 days of construction, 28 shifts every day, 24 working groups for the organisation of the camp, 20 announced workshops with 33 sub-workshops, countless informal meetings and spontaneous workshops, 8 languages translated, 67 visa applications, 32 visas denied, 12,310 meals, 525 kg of flour for bread (from a bakery on site, fresh every day), 150 hours of washing up (at least), 68 kg of coffee, 250 sleeping tents, 24 toilets, 8 urinals, 34 vans for sleeping, 1 crowing rooster every early morning (which nearly ended up in the kitchen), 4 large circus tents, 16 large tents for infrastructure and gatherings, 1 aggressive goose, 1 solidarity bus collecting participants from Germany and abroad, 69 flight tickets, 21 showers, 4 days of dismantling…“ The brochure can be downloaded or ordered in English and French from trans-border.net.
With solidarity, the Kompass crew