On December 13, 2022, the Political Science and Philosophy Department of Khazar University organized a countrywide simulation on the meeting of the European Council over response of the EU on irregular migration and return.

Organized within the Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Module, the simulation of the European Council meeting was attended by students from 6 Azerbaijani HEIs and 2 HEIs of foreign countries.

Previously instructed by the academic coordinators of the Erasmus+ Jean Monnet project Dr. Elmar Mustafayev and Zibar Huseynova on the roles and competencies of the EU and its institutions, the students were split into the roles of heads of states or governments of the member-states, and the President of the European Council. The participant students were tasked with studying the position of their respective roles from the perspective of their national interest, interests and ideology of their ruling party or coalition governments, as well as the common European interests.

During the simulation day, the common work on migration and asylum, saving lives at sea and targeting criminal migrant traffickers, inflow of migrants from Southern and Eastern borders, distribution of migrants among the member states, and the common rules for managing to return irregular migrants were subject of discussion.

Despite the difficulties to find the common ground on the above-mentioned topics, the students simulating the EU summit acknowledged the importance of ensuring effective external border control.