Kick off meeting for the Mediterranean Migration Network

The meeting attended representatives of services and authorities from the Republic of Cyprus, International Organisations, and NGOs from other EU-countries. More specifically the meeting attended representatives from the University of Nicosia, Trade Unions, the UNHCR, Youth board of Cyprus, Migrant’s organisation, the European University of Nicosia, the Cyprus Police, the Social Welfare Services of the Republic, Ministry of Interior, the Municipality of Ad. Dometios, the Ombudsman Office, the International Organisation of Migration, and NGOs.

The objective of the meeting was the identification of needs and challenges public and private organisations face in relation to migration and integration. Some of the needs discussed were; the members expectations in relation to the Network, the redefinition of the working framework of the Network, and the participation procedures and activities to be developed within the Network through discussion and brainstorming exercises.

Some of the main issues identified and raised were: the migration policies are not unified, Migration centres – even though they can be considered as good practices they can be changed to the procedures making migrants lives difficult due to location, security etc. There is a lack of cooperation among NGOs and Public Service and not a concrete decision on a European level and hopefully at some point we will have coherent model on an EU level.

Further to the needs and challenges assessment, participants discussed on a number of topics the MMN should focus on. Some of the issues raised was; the legal status of immigrants with a discrimination of the categories that needs to be identified. Procedures are long and migrant’s status is an issue in many different situations. The legal status of migrants affects the policies of integration and define the integration of immigrants. Access to information, negative attitudes, lack of integration and participation in decision making processes.

For more information you can download the minutes of the meeting from the MMN eLibrary (registered users only). If you wish to register to the MMN platform click here.