Istanbul – The Budapest Process held its 6th Ministerial Conference, preceded by the 4th Preparatory Meeting for Senior Officials, under chairmanship of the Republic of Turkey and co-chaired by Hungary.
The Ministers adopted the political declaration “The Istanbul Commitments’ containing key commitments under a Silk Routes Partnership for Migration and the action plan “A Call for Action – a five year plan” which lists key actions that can be drawn from the six interconnected priority goals agreed upon in the Budapest Process Istanbul Ministerial Declaration “A Silk Routes Partnership for Migration” in 2013, each having equal weight.
MARRI Regional Centre Director Sashko Kocev and MARRI Participant Representative of the Republic of Albania, Mr. Ahmet Lala represented MARRI. In his statement, RC Director Kocev stressed that “we (MARRI) are aware of the fact that these (migration) flows are far from over and that we need holistic and long-term approach in order to tackle its various aspects. The partnerships with the relevant international organizations and institutions, … and participation in regional and inter-regional dialogue such as Budapest Process, Prague Process, Berlin Process, is the right way toward successful migration management and establishing mechanisms to prevent, prepare for, and respond to crises.” He also added that MARRI remains open to serve, within its mandate, as platform for dialogue and to provide support in addressing the challenges in migration management.
Over the past 26 years, the Budapest Process has become recognized both in East and West as well as further stakeholders, as an excellent tool for identifying and addressing evolving migration challenges.
The 6th Ministerial Conference confirmed the successful development of the Budapest Process into a balanced intergovernmental dialogue on migration. It also established the priorities, working modalities and operational cooperation for the road ahead.