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Migration Trends 2006-2008
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The thematic workshop “European Asylum Curriculum”

21 October 2009

The thematic workshop on the European Asylum Curriculum was held in Kyiv on 19-20 October 2009. The meeting was organised jointly by the Söderköping Process Secretariat, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Swedish Migration Board (SMB) and was funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).

The workshop involved governmental officials from Ministries of Interior of Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine as well as interlocutors in the State Border Guard Services, Training Academies and other institutions. The main objective of the workshop was to present the European Asylum Curriculum and to discuss the possibility of applying certain elements of the EAC in Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine.

The European Asylum Curriculum (EAC) is an EU Member State initiative intending to enhance the capacity and quality of the European asylum process as well as to strengthen practical cooperation among the European asylum/immigration systems.

The asylum systems of the EU Member States have undergone major changes in order to approximate their laws and practice. What was once an area of essentially national concern has become an international issue following the introduction of several EU legal instruments on asylum. Further harmonisation is on the horizon through the establishment of a Common European Asylum

System (CEAS) by the year 2010, as envisaged by the Council of Ministers in the Hague Programme on Asylum.

The workshop was aimed to assess the system of how training curricula are formally integrated in the educational systems of Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine and the legal procedure that is followed in each country as well as to assess the feasibility of transposing one or several of the thirteen modules of the EAC in Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine.

The specific objectives of the workshop were:

  • To compile and analyse (existing) institutionalized asylum curricula and training programs in the academies of the Ministries of Interior, Asylum Authorities and Border Guard Services of Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine as well as universities;
  • To assess the legal and administrative procedure that need to be followed in order to integrate training curricula in Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine;
  • To assess the financial and infrastructural requirements and resources needed to integrate the EAC;
  • To assess if any of the 13 EAC modules can be easily integrated and/or are of more immediate interest/relevance in Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine.

The materials and report from the workshop will be made available in a weeks time and will be uploaded on www.soderkoping.org.ua in English and Russian.