The Estonian NCP held its first national network conference in Tallinn. The conference served to inform members from their national network of the EMN’s activities as well as the results from some of the latest research studies. Representatives from the Commission, the EMN Co-ordinator, and other NCPs were in attendance as well as members from the Estonian national network in the government, local research institutes and national NGOs. The keynote speech was delivered by Riita Koponen from the Ministry of Interior in Finland, highlighting the priorities of the Finnish Council presidency in the field of migration issues.
A twinning meeting was hosted by the Slovenian National Contact Point in Ljubljana. BIVS, European Dynamics and the Italian National Contact Point participated in a meeting to inform their ‘new’ Slovenian colleagues about their part in the EMN and to give advice and tips on best practices.
Following the successful completion of the expert hearing on the EMN Green Paper, the Commission is now in the final stages of developing a draft for legal base proposal, consulting also twice the Committee on Immigration and Asylum. This proposal would be based on Article 66 of the EC Treaty, requiring Qualified Majority Voting of the Council and consultation of the EP. The intention is for this to be formally presented to Council in the first quarter of 2007.
The EMN completed its Small-Scale Study II on "Managed Migration and the Labour Market - The Health Sector". The aim of this study was to contribute to the development of appropriate policies by presenting the current situation of and needs for migrant healthcare workers in the 11 participating Member States (AT, BE, DE, EE, GR, IE, IT, LT, NL, SE, UK), in a comparative manner. Whilst this is not yet published, the Country Study of each participating EMN NCP and the comparative Synthesis Report are available upon request or via the EMN website.
In the context of the Metropolis conference in Lisbon/Portugal, the Austrian, Dutch and UK NCPs successfully applied for and organised a workshop related to identifying best practices in optimising knowledge networks in the area of migration, asylum, and integration. Other organisations contributing to this workshop included EUMC, IMISCOE, IGC, and CARIM.
Following the recommendation of the action plan developed jointly by the Italian and Dutch NCPs, the EMN held a training session, primarily for new network members, on 20th June 2006 in Brussels. The session sought to share best practices, organisational and networking techniques, as well as to inform new network members on grant agreement procedures and the EMN information exchange system.
Following publication, in November 2005, of a Green Paper on the "Future of the European Migration Network (EMN)" (COM (2005) 606), the Commission organised a Selected Experts´ Meeting to discuss further the 32 contributions received and possible next steps for the development of a legal base proposal. The hearing included presentations from the Commission and Network Members, including the Belgian and Austrian contact points, as well as third party organisations, such as the Odysseus Network and GHK Consulting. The hearing began with a discussion of the future mandate of EMN and the role that this mandate should fulfil. The hearing also focused on the future structure of EMN, including the future organisation of EMN activities.
The Enlarged Joint Meeting of the EMN and National Contact Points on Integration has taken place in Brussels. The links listed below provide access to the various Presentations, Posters and Contributions given during the conference, to the Introductory Text and Country Study's of the Pilot Study presented at the conference and to the EMN Green Paper, which was discussed in the afternoon sessions.
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