Upon the invitation of the Ministry for Home Affairs, Security, Reforms and Equality (MHSR) and the Ministry for Foreign and European Affairs and Trade (MFET) of Malta, a Study Visit to this most southern Prague Process participating state was organised on 7-9 June.
Representatives of Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, North Macedonia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan had a chance to acquaint themselves with work of the Maltese migration authorities, the EU Agency for Asylum (EUAA), ICMPD’s Regional Office for the Mediterranean (RO MED) and the newly established Training Institute on Migration Capacity Partnership for the Mediterranean (TI MCP MED).
The MHSR introduced participants to its irregular migration and international protection set-up and the core functions of the migration and asylum related entities, amongst others, including:
- General migrations situation
- Border control, maritime surveillance and search and rescue;
- Reception of asylum seekers and irregular migrants; detention;
- Asylum process and the different protection statuses;
- Relocation; resettlement;
- Return procedures, counselling, AVR, forced return;
- Integration
Participants thus gained a holistic view of the national approaches and institutional setup, before engaging in an exchange on good practices and key challenges.
Meanwhile, the representatives of the MFET provided a comprehensive overview of the recent key developments along the Central Mediterranean Route, focusing both on migration flows from Eastern Europe, as well as the situation in neighbouring countries of origin and transit in the South. The contribution further assessed the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, as well as the current situation and future prospects for migration in the context of increasing economic and climate challenges. Finally, the external dimension of migration governance and the different levels of international relation received special attention, referring in particular to the EU Pact for Migration and Asylum, UN Global Compacts, Joint Valetta Action Plan and Malta’s ICMPD membership.
Executive Director Nina Gregori welcomed participants to the EUAA, introducing the Agency’s enhanced mandate and role within the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) after becoming a fully-fledged EU Agency on 19 January 2022. The Agency then presented concrete ways to deepen the cooperation with non-EU Prague Process countries, focusing in particular on training and professional development to ensure that asylum and reception officials have the skills needed for fast and fair procedures in line with EU standards. In a next step, a needs assessment among targeted partner countries shall help to identify their concrete capacity-building needs.
The visit to the RO MED brought an overly inspiring insight into ICMPD’s work, flagship initiatives and overall success in the Mediterranean region. The key concept of Migration Capacity Partnerships and presentations on the EUROMED Migration V and Mediterranean City-to-City Migration projects manifested both the commonalities and differences among the two regions, as well as to the cooperation within the Prague Process.
The MCP MED TI equally generated a lot of interest and inspiration among the 12 visiting states. Following an introduction to the concept, donors and objectives of the ICMPD- operated Training Institute, participants learned about the institutional accreditation of the courses, the involvement of Southern partner countries, the curriculum and trainer development, compliance and quality assurance mechanisms, as well as the very learning management system. Participants welcomed the successful model and took note of various innovative ideas and good practices in terms of quality assured learning.
In the concluding feedback session, participants expressed their gratitude to the Maltese hosts and all other entities involved, as well as their appreciation of the rich programme and professional organisation of the Study Visit. All participants received the presentations delivered during the 2,5 working days, allowing them to share the experiences made among their national structures.
