News

On June 10th, the Prague Process celebrated its 10th Anniversary! Hosted by the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU the Anniversary event gathered over 80 senior-level officials from 34 countries, the European Commission, Council of the EU and its current Presidency, EASO, Frontex, ICMPD and IOM at the impressive Parliament building in Bucharest. The event served to take stock of the past decade of cooperation and look into the future.

The new January-March 2019 issue of the Prague Process Quarterly Review is now availiable for download in English and Russian.

Aiming to address issues of acute importance, this Quarterly review looks at the demographic developments across the Prague Process states and at the results of the so-called EU-Turkey Agreement. Moreover, Lithuania’s Vice-Minister of Interior speaks about the current challenges in terms of labour shortages and efforts made to improve the understanding of migration among media and the public. The review further touches upon the thematic areas of IBM, return and migrant smuggling, and assesses the state of the European Agenda on Migration before the EU elections on 26 May 2019. Finally, it introduces the newest publications released by the Migration Observatory.

To see all issues please go to the section "Quarterly Review" under News & Events.

Since the very establishment of the Prague Process in 2009, Germany has been an active member to it. In the period 2012-2016, the country also led (together with Sweden) the two Pilot Projects on Asylum and International Protection. Due to the exceptional numbers of migrants and asylum seekers arriving to Germany in 2015-2016, the competent migration authorities had to limit their international cooperation and address the challenges faced within the country. Their efforts resulted in an overhaul of the strained asylum system and substantial investments in it. In order to learn more about the current state of play in the migration and asylum sphere and the lessons learned from the recent crisis, a study visit to the Federal Officer for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) of Germany was organised on 9-11 April 2019.

This three-day training was the third one implemented within the Prague Process Training Academy, following the ones on International Protection and on Trafficking in Human Beings, organised in 2018 in Rome and Baku respectively. The training in Kiev gathered 50 participants, including representatives of 13 participating states, the European Commission and a number of renowned trainers.

On 13 March 2019, a meeting with the high-level representatives of the Ministry of Labour, Migration and Employment of Tajikistan took place in Dushanbe. The meeting was carried out in the framework of an ICMPD mission led by Mr. Radim Zak, Prague Process Coordinator and ICMPD’s Regional Coordinator for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The parties discussed various areas of cooperation and, among others, cooperation in the area of legal and safe migration, labour migration beyond the Russian labour market.

Since June 2018 the Prague Process Secretariat had an opportunity to get impressions and interview experts, trainers and participants of the Training Academy and Migration Observatory meetings. Today we are happy to share the result of this work and invite you to watch a set of video clips availiable under Resources.

For the 6th time, ICMPD organises the International Summer School on Migration. The summer school is a joint initiative by three ICMPD-led projects: MOBILAZE, ENIGMMA 2 and PP DATA. The Summer School takes place in Georgia from 30 June to 6 July 2019.

ICMPD invites all interested candidates to apply before March 31st, 2019.

In 2019, the Migration Observatory is launching its second Internship for young professionals and students from the Prague Process participating states. The internship offers an opportunity to practically engage into the work of the Prague Process and thus contribute to the very development of the Migration Observatory. In this way, the intern shall not only increase his/her understanding of the core migration areas but also get an insight into the roles and responsibilities of the key actors involved in an intergovernmental migration dialogue.

The active role of the State Migration Service of Ukraine in the Prague Process was acknowledged during the recent visit of the ICMPD’s Director General Michael Spindelegger and ICMPD’s Regional Coordinator for Eastern Europe and Central Asia Radim Zak. The visit to Ukraine took place on 24-25 of January 2019, and saw a set of bilateral meetings with representatives of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, the State Migration Service and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs featuring discussions on ongoing projects and institutional cooperation.