The Final Workshop of the Pilot Project 5 on Illegal migration in Bucharest was hosted by the Ministry of Interior of Romania on 24-25 of February 2016 and gathered representatives of Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, and representatives of the IOM and ICMPD.
The meeting was devoted to the discussion of the last topics envisaged by the Project topic, namely – Identification of vulnerable groups of migrants, as well as the presentation of the draft PP5 Handbook on Establishing Identity and/or Nationality of Irregular migrants, the work on which should be completed before the forthcoming Senior Officials’ Meeting.
Discussing the identification of vulnerable migrants, IOM Romania presented programmes on Assisted Voluntary Return. Concrete return cases have proven that the long journey to a destination country can make migrants vulnerable. In this regard, IOM relies on the definition of vulnerable migrants to be found in the EU’s ‘Return Directive’ (2008/115/EC). The identification of vulnerable cases helps to address them adequately as return programs allow for providing vulnerable migrants with additional support. As was additionally noted by Romania, such additional support implies the provision of the necessary financial means, as well as accommodation and clothing.
The identification process goes hand in hand with the conduction of interviews, as put forward by Hungary, and includes also various techniques such as the identification of accents and dialects by interpreters from Somalia, Nigeria or Pakistan (the group of countries with the most illegal border crossings). Participants, however, acknowledged that interviews lasting 1-2 hours allow for hearing only 12 persons a day, which is considered too lengthy in a crises situation. Despite of the substantial efforts made to perform the identification and return efficiently, the process is challenged by the poor quality of fingerprints, medical constraints and limitations related to the obtainment of travel documents.
The constantly evolving migration crisis was also discussed. Hungary reported that in 2016 the number of illegal border crossings to Hungary decreased due to implementation of a new legislation, introducing new criminal offences related to crossing the border or damaging the border fence. Moreover, the sentence for organizing illegal migration was increased to up to 15 years of imprisonment. Macedonia reported on almost 1 million border crossings, with the share of economic migrants amounting to 30 %.
The meeting then served the discussion of the draft PP5 Handbook, the work on which is at a final stage. Supporting the Handbook recommendations, participants underlined the role of readmission agreements in return procedures, the need to update additional protocols to readmission agreements so that they reflect the dynamic development of cooperation, and stressed the need to ensure cooperation on informal level. Russia advised to make a reference in the recommendations to other agreements (e.g. to conventions on data protection). All additional written comments, amendments and recommendations on behalf of the participating states are expected by mid-March. The Handbook thereafter will be amended, translated and shared with the PP5 participating states for their final approval.
