The State of the European Union. The European Parliament faces its most important elections yet

GLOBAL AGREEMENTS ON MIGRATION AND REFUGEES: CHALLENGES AND PROPOSALS 101 publicly available assessment of ongoing pro- gress towards these goals. To this end, all countries involved must make full use of mechanisms established for multilat- eral action and take active part in contemplated cooperative and best practice sharing activities aligned with the objective of achieving a better distribution of the responsibility for, and bur- dens related to, the protection of refugees, ac- knowledging the role that civil society must play in the implementation, monitoring and assess- ment of the pact. Programmatic elements envisaged include high-level official meetings to be held beginning in 2021 in tandem with the High Commissioner for Refugee’s Dialogues on Protection Challenges, Asylum Capacity Support Groups activated at the request of countries requiring greater assistance and other support forums eventually to be convened, for example, by Euro-Mediterranean countries. Broad participa- tion in the 2019 Global Refugee Forum, the first of a series of periodic forums conceived as the pact’s main vehicle for follow-up and assess- ment at which countries are expected to report their contributions and achieves to date, wiil be crucial. How these events play out is important, as they will provide a barometer of the extent to which countries as leaders of the international community and international law (which are en- twined) support the protection of refugees and actually uphold the often-voiced principle that no one should be left behind.