The Kick-off meeting of the ERIS project, which is implemented under the Prague Process Umbrella, took place in Moscow on 7th May 2013 with participation of Russian, Czech and Austrian authorities as well as ICMPD. The meeting was hosted by the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation and gathered representatives of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Czech Ministry of Interior, Austrian Federal Ministry of Interior, the EU Delegation to the RF and International Center for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD).The participants officially launched the two-years EU-funded project, discussed their specific expectations towards the project implementation and outcomes and agreed on immediate next steps. In general, constructive and vivid discussions confirmed importance that the partners attach to the project. Integration of foreigners remains to be of high priority in all partner states and the ERIS in this respect provides great opportunity to develop effective answers to challenges that integration currently poses. By delivering specific outcomes, the project shall contribute to advanced capacity building in area of integration in the partner states but it should as well become available for any other Prague process states interested in the topic. In this respect, participants of the meeting agreed that the project shall be as much flexible as possible to employ broad expertise provided by experts from partners’ authorities as well as by the other Prague process countries or external experts.Leaving the meeting with clear vision of the project implementation, the partners looked forward to implementing the upcoming activity which will be the introductory mission to the Russian Federation.For more details contact Mr. Zdenek Belonoznik, ERIS Project Officer.
