EMN National Contact Point (NCP) in Greece, holding the EU Presidency in the first half of 2014, organised EMN annual conference on Irregular Migration and Return: Challenges and Practices. The conference was held in Athens on 12-13 June, 2014. The organisers welcomed 180 participants including representatives from the European Commission, 28 EMN National Contact Points, international and regional organisations (e.g. the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, International Organization for Migration, Migration Policy Institute), national and international academics and researchers, and representatives from governmental departments in third countries.
The conference aimed to provide a platform for debate on irregular migration and return, to raise awareness about the work of the EMN and its sub-group - the Return and Reintegration Experts’ Group (REG) - in this area, and to share the preliminary findings from the following EMN synthesis reports: The use of detention and alternatives to detention in the context of immigration policies (national report for the Slovak Republic is available here); and Good practices in the return and reintegration of irregular migrants: Member States’ entry bans policy and use of readmission agreements between Member States and third countries (national report for the Slovak Republic is available here).
In four panels, national and international experts discussed cooperation for effective return, incentives for return and reintegration and alternatives to detention. The first panel attempted to examine challenges and practices in cooperation for effective return including debate on examples of effective measures in the fields of return and entry bans. The second panel looked at the instruments available in the EU’s external relations’ policy for ensuring effective returns and cooperation with third countries. The aim of the third panel was to review different practices for providing incentives for return and reintegration which included presentations on IOM’s Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) programmes as well as overview of the aims and activities of the REG Group. Afterwards, a discussion on the improvement of negotiation and implementation of EU Readmission Agreements arose. The last panel focused on alternatives to detention in the context of balancing security risks and fundamental rights of third country nationals. The discussion which followed after this panel concerned public opinion regarding alternatives to detention.
Conference programme and presentations are available on Greek EMN National Contact Point website.