The Belgian National Contact Point meets State Secretary Theo Francken

Today, 1 April, the Belgian EMN NCP met the State Secretary for Asylum and Migration to outline EMN activities and to explore how the EMN can be of greater use to policy makers, especially in the framework of EU benchmarking.

During today's meeting, staff members of the Belgian Contact Point had the opportunity to personnally brief State Secretary Theo Francken on several activities that the EMN undertakes. The added value of the Ad Hoc Query-system (for example in the framework of EU benchmarking), the activities of the EMN return expert group (REG) and the national conference planned by the Belgian NCP for this Autumn were particularly discussed.

Staff members of the Belgian Contact Point were also presented to the advisors of Mr. Francken's Cabinet. Other activities were examined in more depth. In this regard, thematic studies for 2015 were inter alia discussed, such as "determining labour shortages and the need for labour migration in the EU"; "mixed migration and changes of status"; "dissemination of information on voluntary return: how to reach irregular migrants not in contact with the authorities" and finally "comparisons of social benefits and integration measures for persons after the asylum procedure and for beneficiaries of international protection".  The State Secretary was also briefed on a large, ongoing study on human smuggling, outsourced by the European Commission to a consortium, to which EMN provides input.

The meeting allowed to identify current priorities and information needs of policy makers and to recognize the relevance of EMN tools to respond to these.

Publication Date: Wed 01 Apr 2015
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