Which Perspectives for Labour Migration Partnerships in the Prague Process region?

This is the video recording of the Prague Process Webinar ‘Which Perspectives for Labour Migration Partnerships in the Prague Process region? Lessons from EU funded Pilot Projects on Legal Migration’ with Mr Marco Funk, International Relations Officer, International Strategy Unit of DG HOME, European Commission, Mr Mario Lelovsky, Director of the Digital Coalition Slovakia, and Ms Diana Stefanescu, Project Specialist – Labour Migration, ICMPD, that took place on 15 April 2021.

The webinar shed light on the EU’s past and future engagement and planning for labour migration initiatives with partner countries. Speakers presented key lessons learned from EU funded labour mobility initiatives, provided a general overview of the European Commission’s new Talent Partnerships concept announced in the New EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, and outlined the next steps envisaged for their operationalization. The webinar also highlighted plans for the first EU-funded labour mobility pilot project to be implemented in the Eastern Partnership region.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Mr Mario Lelovsky - Director of the Digital Coalition Slovakia, Vice-president of the IT Association in Slovakia (ITAS), and Vice-president of the Slovak National Union of Employers (NUE). Digital Coalition and ITAS have implemented a labour and student mobility programme between Ukraine and Slovakia, and will be part of “Talents for Moldova”, an innovative circular mobility scheme in the ICT sector between Slovakia and Moldova.

Mr Marco Funk - International Relations Officer, International Strategy Unit of DG Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME), European Commission. His previous experience includes migration policy-related roles at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, European Policy Centre, EU Institute for Security Studies and IOM. He holds a Master in European Affairs from Sciences Po Paris and a Bachelor in Political Science from the University of Central Florida.

Ms Diana Stefanescu - Project Specialist – Labour Migration, ICMPD. In her function with ICMPD’s Mobility Partnership Facility, Diana has accompanied the implementation of the EU-funded pilot projects on legal migration in close cooperation with DG HOME. A political scientist by training, she previously worked for the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, and in the private and non-profit sectors in the Netherlands, France, Germany, and the US.