European Commission to launch project to strengthen Moldova’s capacity to manage labor migration

The European Commission on May 14 will launch the €3 million project “Strengthening Moldova’s Capacity to Manage Labor and Return Migration” as part of the Mobility Partnership with the EU, Info-Prim Neo reports. Wolfgang Behrendt, head of the Policy and Economy Division of the European Commission’s Delegation to Moldova, told Wednesday a news conference that the Swedish Employment Agency will be the major coordinator of the project on behalf of the European Union. The three-year project will aim to facilitate the return and reintegration of the migrant workers and contribute to legal migration. According to Behrendt, the European Commission has recently signed an agreement with Moldova to provide €10 million worth of aim in the areas of border control and labor force management. The head of the Foreign Ministry’s European Integration Department Iulian Groza said that a campaign will be conducted as part of the project to inform the Moldovans that want to work in the EU about the legal opportunities for migration. Also, there will be opened an information center. The Moldovans will be also encouraged to return to the country and invest the money in the national economy, setting up small and medium-sized enterprises. The project aims to strengthen the capacities of the public authorities, especially of the Ministry of Economy and Trade and the National Employment Agency. There will be signed a series of bilateral agreements with the EU member states to ensure the social protection of the Moldovans working in the European Union. On the occasion of the launch of the project, a meeting of the Cooperation Platform on the EU-Moldova Mobility Partnership was held today in Chisinau. It was attended by representatives of the EU member states, the European Commission and the European Commission’s Delegation to Moldova as well as delegates of the Moldovan authorities involved in the implementation of the partnership. Iulian Groza said that the meeting discussed the over 60 projects that had been implemented or are being implemented and future projects to manage legal labor migration, combat illegal migration and trafficking in human beings, ensure the social protection of migrants. In June this year, the European Commission is to assess the results achieved during the first year of the launch of the Mobility Partnership with Moldova and Cape Verde. Mobility partnerships are new instruments designed to give practical expression to the partnership between the European Union and third countries. The Republic of Cape Verde and the Republic of Moldova are the first two countries with which the Union entered into such a commitment in June 2008. The projects that form part of the EU-Moldova Mobility Partnership are aimed at strengthening the relations with the Moldovan communities, promoting the return and reintegration of Moldovan migrants, strengthening the institutional capacities in such areas as migration management, investment of remittances, border control and document security, social projection, fight against illegal migration and human trafficking. Fifteen EU member states, the European Commission, Frontex Agency and the European Training Foundation are part of the partnership. The European Commission is now considering negotiating a Mobility Partnership with Georgia and possibly Senegal.