International Organisation for Migrations - 86th Session of its Council.

Statement by Mr. Cristian Badescu, Second Secretary,
Permanent Mission of Romania

Geneva, 20 November 2003

Please allow me to begin by warmly congratulating the Chairman and the other members of the Bureau for their appointment and to wish them full success in exercising the important mandate they have been invested with. I would also like to take this opportunity to express our thanks to the members of the outgoing Bureau for their sustained activity and their contribution to the achievement of new results in the activity of the Organization.

Mr. Chairman,

Primarily I would like to express our appreciation for the IOM initiative to widening the debate on migration issues during this session of the Council. In our opinion, it is the right time to focus the attention on a broad international cooperation among governments, international organisations and other relevant actors in this field. The high level of representation of the international organizations and governments during these days confirms the importance of the migration phenomena, which have become one of the major questions that will inevitably shape our future. The debates in this forum encouraged our expectations in identifying comprehensive and concerted manners to address the challenges raised by migration. The workshops organised during the session allowed the participants to briefly present analyses, to express preoccupations as to the necessary improvement of the evolutions in this matter, as well as to suggest practical lines for future action.

Mr. Chairman,

The special attention of the Romanian government for developing and promoting comprehensive national policies on migration is indissolubly bound to reality. We consider necessary to integrate the various approaches of migration issues and we vigorously support the processes of regional cooperation presented here yesterday. In this context and in accordance to its major objectives of foreign policy, Romania continues to make consistent efforts in order to develop its capability to strongly fight irregular migration and to accord the activity of the national administration to relevant European and international standards. Please allow me to briefly present the main actions of the Romanian Government related to the management of migration:

• Romanian authorities are preparing to conclude and to adopt in 2004 a National Strategy on Migration. At the same time, we analyse the possibility to create in Bucharest, with the IOM support, a Resource Center on migration management on both national and regional levels;
• New regulations on work permits were included in the Romanian legislation. These regulations contain provisions concerning the access of citizens originating from high migratory potential states on the Romanian labour market;
• The acceleration of the reform of the Ministry of Administration and Interior by strengthening the institutional building process of the law enforcement agencies as National Authority for Aliens, Romanian Police, Romanian Border Police and National Office for Refugees;
• Coordination and effective conduction of operational activities as MIRAGE, the first regional operation within the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI) Regional Center, in the field of trafficking in human beings and irregular migration. The second phase of that operation, MIRAGE 2003, took place recently and was promoted by the Romanian Ministry of Administration and Interior. This successful operation kept its regional dimension and asked a broad international cooperation including IOM assistance for the victims of trafficking. The positive turnout indicates that such kind of action defines the right direction to be followed in the future by other similar operations;
• An important contribution to these efforts has been made by strategic and tactical intelligence on trafficking in human beings and irregular migration developed under REFLEX project, successfully implemented in Romania with assistance provided by the British Immigration Authorities;
• Other relevant activities of the Romanian authorities focused on improving the management of the Romanian borders, securing the travel documents, signing new readmission agreements, developing the network of Romanian attachés for home affairs and liaison officers abroad.

In our opinion, due to the multiple international changes on global level, the elaboration of the migration management is no longer exclusively limited to a national framework. Romania is ready to actively support the international cooperation programmes in order to improve the regional capacity on migration management. This way my country would like to reiterate, once again, its interest and availability for a real cooperation, being aware that for getting concrete and lasting results, a coherent national policy, based on international cooperation and assistance, has to be permanently promoted.

Mr. Chairman,

Five years ago Romania became one of the IOM members. For us, this period represents a fruitful activity and we achieved a significant experience. The positive evolution of the cooperation of my country with IOM consolidates our conviction on the importance of the formal international coordination into the organisation. These days the Republic of Malta has joined us and we take this opportunity to welcome it. We also welcome representation by observer of League of Arab States, Organisation of the Islamic Conference, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee - Center for International Migration and Integration and Jesuit Refugee Service.

Mr. Chairman,

Having in view the programmes of the organisation for 2004, we appreciate the IOM support for capacity developments on national level and for regional cooperation processes, which have to be fully explored. The prospects of regional cooperation processes represent strong reasons for involving governments of our countries in new common actions in this field.

At the same time we would like to salute the wise decision to integrate the Migration Policy and Research Program (MPRP) in the structure of the organisation. The main objective of the Programme is to clarify the migration concepts and its studies are expected to offer a solid background for discussions and to support the elaboration of theoretic means to tackle the subject. We consider this theoretical approach of migration important not only for the leading role in the field of migration offered to IOM but also for the opportunity to increase the capacity of the organisation to influence the elaboration of the policies on the migration management at regional and global level.

Mr. Chairman,

The principles according to which the migration management is ensured at the confines of interests and in a collective framework are reflected by the cooperative options IOM encourages its members to adopt in this field. The truthfulness of these actions is proven by the obvious progress scored within each cooperative process presented here yesterday.

The importance of the IOM, which acts for promoting values and principles as human rights and internal security, has been confirmed many times by the historic trends of the world evolution. We count on the commitment of the IOM to tackle the main challenges imposed by migration as a global phenomenon, pressing ahead in an imaginative manner with the necessary cooperation, revealing the positive aspects of the migration and improving theoretical analyses in this field.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman