SKOPJE, Macedonia – The MARRI Regional Centre and the Macedonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the capacity of the MARRI Presidency-in-Office, organised Friends of MARRI/Diplomatic Briefing meeting on the Government premises in Skopje on 21 October 2008. The meeting gathered members of Macedonian diplomatic corps, relevant international organisations and representatives of foreign donours from EU countries.
The opening speech was delivered by the Macedonian Minister of Interior, Ms. Gordana Jankuloska, M.A. The MARRI Regional Centre was recognised as an active factor competent for migrations. According to Minister Jankuloska, the Republic of Macedonia shall continue to give its active and constructive support to the Centre in order to raise the level of regional cooperation, mechanisms for exchange of information, promotion and support of the standards harmonisation process and the visa facilitation process, improving regional migration management system at a sustainable and permanent grounds.
Addressing the event, Minister also said it was obvious that no economic and social prosperity and stability in Southeastern Europe was possible without security at both internal and regional level. The migration policy is one of the priorities in the reform process within MoI, she said adding that the Ministry’s efforts were aiming at implementing the migration goals determined by the Action Plan on Prevention of Illegal Migration and Human Trafficking as well as the Action Plan on Border Management.
The process of Macedonia’s visa regime harmonisation with EU’s is determined by our objective for EU membership and full visa regime liberalisation, said Jankulovska amongst other things.
She noted the opening of borders would contribute to increased exchange of ideas and capital. Jankuloska expressed assurance that the facilitated procedures for entering the country would contribute not only to strengthening the political dialogue and the Macedonia-EU ties, but also to laying the foundations for further boost in economic cooperation and foreign investments.
Minister Jankulovska informed the diplomatic corps that in April 2008 the shelter for accommodating asylum seekers was put into function, while on 1 July 2008 the Law on Amending the Law on Asylum and Temporary Protection entered into force.
The Republic of Macedonia will resume in the future to give active and constructive support to the MARRI Regional Centre, aiming at raising the level of regional support, mechanisms for information exchange, promoting and supporting the standards harmonisation process and the visa facilitation procedure, improving the system for managing the regional migration, stated Minister Jankulovska.
Improving the cooperation and strengthening the capacities for implementation of the visa facilitation and readmission agreement for enabling accelerated communication amongst the countries in the region, interactive migration map following the example of EU countries, establishing a network amongst the regional relevant institutions regarding human trafficking, analysing the conditions in relation to regional migration are some of the projects by the MARRI initiative presented at the briefing.
An overview of MARRI Regional Centre’s present and future activities was presented at the above-mentioned meeting by the Director of the MARRI Regional Centre, Dr. Trpe Stojanovski. He briefed the participants on six MARRI project proposals for 2008/2009 as submitted to the potential donours, as follows: Building capacity of MARRI Member States for successful implementation of Agreements on Visa Facilitation and Readmission; MARRI Interactive Migration Map; Assessment of Types of Identification Documents in MARRI Member States; Promoting a Regionally Integrated Approach for Successful Preventing and Combating of THB; MARRI Migration Paper 2008/2009 (analysis of progress made in areas identified in Roadmaps for Visa Liberalisation and recommendations for way forward in the region) and Types of identification documents in MARRI Member States.
The event highlighted the importance of MARRI’s contribution towards promoting regional cooperation between Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, whereas Macedonia presides over the MARRI Regional Forum in the period between May 2008 and May 2009.