Caritas Europa Migration Forum Appeals for Right of Movement

Over 120 participants are meeting in Costa de Caparica/Portugal, from 20 to 22 of September 2007, to partake in Caritas Europa's Fifth Migration Forum: "Building bridges or barriers? - Exploring the dynamic between migration and development".

Following up the work of the 2005 Migration Forum on the relationship between migration and development, Caritas Europa is further researching the link between these two main policy areas, link which plays an important role in the current European debate.

In line with the global implications of its overarching theme, the Migration Forum brings together Caritas experts in migration and development along with their partner organisations from different regions of the worldwide Caritas Internationalis Confederation.

Among the distinguished guest speakers are Pedro Silva Pereira, Minister of Portuguese Presidency, who will address the audience with an introduction speech; Antonio Vitorino, former EU Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, who will enrich the panel debate on "Human mobility - a need for a rights' based approach"; and the Most Rev Nicholas A Di Marzio, Bishop of Brooklyn, who will deliver the concluding keynote presentation.

For Caritas Europa, the migrants' right of movement is a fundamental principle. Legal entry channels into the EU cannot be limited to reasons of family reunification or to skilled migrants, but should be an integral part of sustainable and responsible immigration policies.

Migrants are "agents of change" and therefore should be integrated in development projects. Flexible policies should enable them to move more often between countries of destination and origin, without loosing their rights acquired in the country of destination, in order to make the country of origin benefit from the expertise, skills and contacts that they have acquired. This also would allow them to maintain better family ties in the country of origin which constitutes an important potential for stability and development.

From this background, the Migration Forum will look at how migration and development policies can join their efforts to alleviate poverty as well as at the necessary steps towards a global system to manage international migration thus ensuring a "triple win": for the countries of destination and origin, and for the migrant. This would require a dialogue among all actors involved on an equal footing.

Working groups will examine questions such as the need for coherence between aid policy, good governance, trade policy and migration policy; migrants' rights in countries of destination and origin; and the effects of remittances on poverty reduction.

Caritas Europa has already presented its concerns to representatives of the Portuguese EU Presidency during the Caritas Europa "Troika" on migration and asylum held in Lisbon in the wake of World Refugee Day, on June 20, 2007.

The Migration Forum of Costa de Caparica will build on the collaboration with the Portuguese EU Presidency and define the specific approach and core messages to be taken up in the Caritas advocacy work on Migration and Development in the upcoming years.