Cypriot Presidency to focus on migration
Andreas Ashiotis, Permanent Secretary of the Cypriot Ministry of Interior, photo 7th European Integration Forum
The Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the EU will take place during the second half of this year, starting on 1 July. It is very probable that one of the main themes of the Cypriot work will be not else, but migration and integration issues.
This became clear during the statement of Andreas Ashiotis, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Interior, at the 7th meeting of the European integration forum in Brussels which took place between 31 May and 1 June.
Ashiotis was one of the main panellists during the forum’s last session. He expressed the acknowledgement of ‘the importance of integration as one of the cornerstones of an effective and productive EU migration policy’ and announced the set-up of conference in November which was to focus on the role of regional and local authorities in shaping and implementing national integration policies.
Furthermore, the permanent secretary said that the upcoming Cyprus Presidency, in collaboration with all actors involved, was ‘willing to further look into the issue of family reunification’ and as its goal was ‘to ensure effective and correct implementation of the directive for family reunification, taking into account that the right to family life, and especially children’s rights, must be fully protected’.
Last but not least, Ashiotis expressed the deep commitment of his country to the issues of migration, integration and family reunification by stating that ‘the Cyprus Presidency will most probably include this issue [the issue of family reunification] in the agenda of the upcoming informal meeting of the Strategic Committee on Immigration, Frontiers and Asylum (SCIFA)’. The meeting is planned for 2nd and 3rd of July in Cyprus.
This year’s edition of 7th meeting of the European integration forum took the form of a public hearing whose main theme was the right to family reunification for third country nationals. The conclusions of the discussion included the opinion of most of the representatives of civil society organisations that it was not the right time to amend directive 2003/86/EC on family reunification, but rather search for ways to improve the existing rules on its implementation. Moreover, the forum identified two options for making the existing rules’ implementation more successful, namely by stronger emphasis on soft-law and enforcement of the current legislation.
The integration forum was opened by Cecilia Malmström, European Commissioner responsible for home affairs. During her statement before the forum, she said that ‘family life is a fundamental right for everyone and family reunification is a right flowing from it, acknowledged by the Member States and enshrined in the Directive on family reunification for third-country nationals’. She added: ‘the right to family reunification should be protected and we must identify and remove any disproportionate barriers that prevent third country nationals from exercising this right’.
Additionally, Commissioner Malmström said that is appeared from the analysis of contributions to the consultation that stakeholders, both NGOs and most Member States, were not asking to re-open the directive, but considered it more useful to ensure its correct implementation through more active implementation policies. She explained that this could be accomplished ‘through infringements or interpretative guidelines’.
The next (eighth) meeting of the European integration forum will take place between 16 and 17 October 2012.
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