Brussels, 09/02/2007 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission, Mali, Spain and France have agreed to work together on a pilot project to manage immigration from Mali in a more humane and secure manner.
The project involves the establishment of a 'Malians Abroad House' and an immigration management and information centre, backed by the European Commission and France and Spain. The Mali authorities will collect and distribute information about immigration, particularly working conditions, opportunities and training in Mali, neighbouring countries and the EU, along with information about the dangers of clandestine immigration and helping returning immigrants fit back into Mali society.
The centres will also help immigrants make the most of their savings and remittances to their families, encouraging highly skilled workers to return to Mali, backing codevelopmetn and decentralised cooperation projects and promoting links between young second generation Mali immigrants in Europe and young people in Mali.
The aim is to introduce the 'accompanied migration' Commissioner Louis Michel is so keen on, as an alternative to security measures for managing immigration flows. A spokesperson for the Commissioner, Amadeu Altafaj Tardio, told reporters that this would not be an EU agency in Africa but rather an agency in Mali benefitting from backing from the European Commission and two EU Member States. It is a pilot project in a country a quarter of whose population lives abroad and where there are excellent levels of governance. The aim is to work with ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) to set up a network of such centres if the pilot project is successful and has a positive impact on illegal immigration, the spokesperson added.
This project is the highlight of a high level meeting between the EU, Mali and ECOWAS in Bamako, Mali, on 8 February as part of EU-African dialogue on immigration and development. EU Development and Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Louis Michel, Brigitte Girardin, deputy French minister for cooperation and development in the French-speaking world and Bernardio Leon, Spanish secretary of state for foreign affairs, attended the meeting, chaired by Ousmane Issoufi Maiga, Mali's prime minister. ECOWAS was represented by Baber Tandina, Director for the free movement of persons.
This new cooperation project takes its inspiration from the Rabat Conference statement and action plan and the outcome of the EU-African ministerial summit on Migration and Development in Tripoli (Libya) in November 2006. (an)