You're reading: Representatives of EU, Ukrainian Interior Ministry discuss migration policy

Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Tatiana Kovalchuk and Adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs Oleksandr Lapin met with Head of Operations Section 1 “Good Governance and Democratisation” of the European Delegation to Ukraine Martin Klaucke and EU Delegation Sector Manager for Border Management, Migration and Security Stephan Dahlgren to discuss cooperation between the two institutions.

The working meeting in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine was a logical continuation of a meeting of the Steering Committee on June 13on the implementation of the project “Support on Migration and Asylum Management in Ukraine” (an Integrated Migration Management Information System, IMMIS), which is being implemented by the International Organization for Migration with the financial support of the European Commission and aims at institutional restructuring of the State Migration Service of Ukraine and the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, the ministry’s media liaison office reported on Thursday.

Kovalchuk said that the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine as the central executive agency that is responsible, among other things, for the formation of the state migration policy, in close cooperation with the Ukrainian Migration Service of Ukraine, performs all the tasks provided for by the project.

She also stressed the need for hammering out a balanced migration policy in close cooperation with the State Migration Service, which implements it, and international partners, in particular the International Organization for Migration and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

“Klaucke, in turn, praised the ministry for transparency and readiness to cooperate with international partners, drawing attention to the need to use the best European experience in the work of the ministry and central executive agencies it supervises. Dahlgren in turn expressed the hope that this working meeting would be the start of fruitful and long-lasting cooperation between the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and the EU Delegation to Ukraine,” the office said.

The Ukrainian officials see partnership with the Delegation as long-lasting, as the next meeting of the Steering Committee of the project “Support on Migration and Asylum Management in Ukraine” will be held at the end of September 2017 when they will be able to summarize the first stage.