20/09/2005 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
Parliamentarians from the Council of Europe and from Kazakhstan said at the end of a three-day meeting in Almaty that closer regional co-operation should be developed to achieve "better conditions for orderly migration management, with respect for human rights and dignity". Adopting a final declaration, participants in the "First Euro-Asian Parliamentary Forum on Migration" pledged to increase co-operation on migration law and submit new initiatives to governments in the Euro-Asian region. They agreed to convene a second forum within two years.
13/09/2005 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
The First Euro-Asian Parliamentary Forum on Migration, jointly organised by the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Migration Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), is to take place in Almaty, Kazakhstan, from 15 to 17 September 2005. The forum will bring together parliamentarians from the Council of Europe, Kazakhstan and other central Asian republics such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan with migration experts.
30/06/2005 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
The Sub-Committee on Refugees of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) held a seminar on population displacement in the southern Caucasus in Baku on 4 July. The event was attended by political representatives, specialists and representatives of international organisations. The seminar discussed aid to refugees and their legal protection, hostage-taking and disappearances, and trafficking in human beings. From 1 to 3 July, Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold ( Switzerland , SOC), Chair of the PACE Sub-Committee on Refugees, and Boriss Cilevics (Latvia , SOC), rapporteur on the refugee situation in the region, visited refugee camps at Fizuli, Bilasuvar, Saatly and Sabirabad (Azerbaijan ). The rapporteur has already visited Armenia and Georgia , in March of this year.
20/06/2005 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
"We do not open our hearts and purses enough for refugees, and their rights are all too often forgotten," said the Chair of PACE’s Refugees Sub-committee Ruth Gaby Vermot-Mangold (Switzerland, SOC), speaking on World Refugee Day. She added: "It is absolutely essential that Council of Europe member states deal much more closely with this issue than they are doing today. Being a refugee is dramatic for any individual, for children and for families."
23/05/2005 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
Measures should be taken to change the image of “clandestine” migrants, a term associated with crime and never with the need for employment, according to participants at the 2nd Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Forum on Migration which concluded yesterday in Rome. Discussing “facts and myths about migration”, participants – including parliamentarians from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan and Egypt – heard that migrants were often meeting a demand for labour in host countries.
02/02/2005 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
Rosmarie Zapfl-Helbling (Switzerland, EPP/CD) meets the Dutch Immigration Minister and members of the Dutch Refugee Council to prepare her report on "The policy of return for failed asylum seekers in the Netherlands". She also visits an asylum centre in Utrecht.
07/12/2004 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
Migrants being a “soft” target, with no or little means to defend themselves, are an easy “victim” for negative myth-telling tabloid press across Europe. Participants at an exchange of views with media representatives on the image of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the media, organised in Paris on 6 December by PACE’s Committee on Migration, agreed that the press have the fundamental role of steering the public in the right direction.
05/11/2004 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
A centre to commemorate victims of deportations, mass expulsions and population transfers should be created under the auspices of the Council of Europe, according to a draft report of PACE’s Migration Committee discussed in Geneva on 5 November. Presenting the idea to the committee, Mats Einarsson (Sweden, UEL) said such a centre – which could be endorsed by European heads of state at the Council of Europe's Third Summit in May – would raise public awareness and promote research on mass deportations past, present and future in the Council of Europe’s 46 member states, carried out "due to a political decision".
29/10/2004 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
The creation of a centre to commemorate the victims of expulsions and mass deportations in Europe - and to help prevent them ever happening again - is to be discussed by parliamentarians, historians and experts in international law during a public seminar in Geneva on 4 November. The seminar, on “the establishment of a centre for European nations’ remembrance under the auspices of the Council of Europe”, has been organised by the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), partly in response to the debate in Germany over the establishment of a “Centre Against Expulsions” in Berlin.
14/09/2004 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
The Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) today made public a report on the humanitarian situation of the Chechen displaced population, prepared by Tadeusz Iwinski (Poland, SOC), which stresses that the situation of refugees and internally displaced persons remains very precarious. While recognising the efforts undertaken by the Russian authorities in order to advance the reconstruction of the destroyed republic, the committee agreed that the security and humanitarian situation remained unsatisfactory.
08/06/2004 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
On 11 June, the Sub-committee on Population of the Assembly’s Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population will take part in a meeting in Strasbourg of the Council of Europe’s inter-governmental group of population experts, the European Population Committee, and will discuss preparations for a parliamentary seminar in Bratislava in September on demographic challenges for social cohesion, with special focus on central and eastern Europe.
06/05/2004 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
On 13 May, the Assembly’s Sub-committee on Migration will take part in the second session of the Council of Europe’s political platform on migration, which aims to promote north-south, east-west dialogue as well as co-operation on migration aspects between countries of origin, transit and destination. The chosen theme is student mobility and co-development.