Closing Ceremony of the PP TI project

Description

After the 59 months of implementation, which is almost five years, the EU-funded project “Support to the Implmenetation of the Prague Process Action Plan 2012 – 2016”, known rather as the “Prague Process Targeted Initiative” or just “PP TI” was closed during the Closing Ceremony organised by the leading state of the project – Poland – at the Polish Permanent Representation to the EU in Brussels on 13 June 2017.  The Ceremony was organised with the purpose to present the numerous achievements and results of the project to diplomatic representations of the 50 countries involved in the Prague Process (all EU MS, Schengen Area, Eastern Partnership, Central Asia, Western Balkans, Russia and Turkey), to EU institutions as well as international organisations present in Brussels.

The project and its achievements were prestended by ICMPD being the Secretariat of the Prague Process and evaluated by high-level representatives of migraiton authoirities of Poland, Czechia and Sweden, as well as by Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova. The European Commission, along with other speakers, highly evaluated the Prague Process as a unique platform for informal inter-governmental dialogue on migration with the valuable principles of informal and non-binding character, voluntary participation and equal footing of all partners.

The numerous migration profiles on EU and non-EU countries, the thematic handbooks and guidelines serving as a basis for capacity building, the study visits, expert missions, workshops, senior-level conferences and the partnership among countries, all this has contributed to better understanding of each other, of different challenges and priorities. After the two previous phases, framed by Ministerial Conference in Prague in April 2009 and in Poznan in November 2011, the third phase will start with the mandate granted by the Ministerial Conference held in Bratislava in September 2016. The work on migraition and the dialogue are perceived as an important tool for states and the European Commissions, for whis reason the preparations for the Third Phase implementation have already started. Establishment of the Migration Observatory and Training Academy as well as concrete actions tackling the priorities in the sphere of fighting irregular migration, in return, readmission and reintegration as well as asylum and international protection, will be disigned in the course of the second half of 2017 and launched at the next meeting of Prague Process Senior Officials in Warsaw in autumn this year.