EU Foreign, Interior Ministers' informal virtual meeting on efficient management of migration

Minister of Foreign Affairs Bogdan Aurescu and the Interior Ministry's Secretary of State for Parliament liaison and International Cooperation, Aurelian Paduraru, attended on Monday the informal virtual meeting of the EU Foreign and Home Affairs Ministers dedicated to the external dimension of migration.

Minister Aurescu stressed the importance of strengthening the link between the internal and external dimension of migration, in line with the integrated approach proposed in the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, as a key element for the efficient and sustainable management of migration.

Aurescu welcomed the strengthening in recent years of the EU's capacity to mobilize numerous instruments and policies, such as the new Neighborhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI), the Team Europe approach which was validated as a successful EU initiative in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic, or the New Mediterranean Agenda.

The Foreign Minister emphasized that a key aspect is the strengthened commitment of the countries of origin and transit and rendering them accountable for the goal of developing comprehensive, balanced and functional partnerships, and maintained that the EU must pay sustained attention to both the African continent - through an intensified cooperation with the African Union, which has developed its own framework on migration - as well as to the rest of the regions affected by migration, mentioning countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan as source countries, but also Western Balkan states as a transit region.

"The discussions also highlighted the crucial role of economic and social development in the regions affected by migration. In this context, the Romanian top diplomat stressed the need for complementarity between the goals of migration policies on the one hand, and international assistance for development and humanitarian support on the other hand, of which he said they should address the root causes of migration by supporting areas such as education, youth, job creation, climate change, health etc.," the release said.

Minister Bogdan Aurescu concluded that talks on this complex file must continue in order to identify the most effective way of coordination between all relevant EU actors - institutions, member states, European agencies - in order to build a coherent and constructive approach to the profound consequences of migration. AGERPRES