Effective migration management relies on anticipation and preparedness, and the European Commission is developing an early warning system to monitor mixed migration flows to the EU. 

This JRC report contributes to this effort by proposing an early warning methodology grounded in an empirical analysis of existing approaches to anomaly detection. 
The report tests early warning models on public asylum application data, demonstrating their effectiveness in detecting early signals of important changes in the number of asylum applications.

The proposed methodology has significant implications for EU migration policy, as it can provide a robust foundation for an early warning system that supports preparedness at the policy level. 

The Migration Preparedness and Crisis Blueprint (Blueprint Network), overseen by the Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs, aims to support the EU's emergency and crisis response by providing an operational framework for monitoring and anticipating migration flows. 

Within this framework, an early warning system is considered essential for facilitating the timely and comprehensive understanding of events and emerging trends, triggering the monitoring of changing situations, and enhancing proactive responses.

By enabling timely monitoring and proactive responses to emerging migration trends, this system can help relevant stakeholders, including policymakers and authorities responsible for migration management, to make informed decisions and take effective action to manage migration flows.