Main information/Analitics
Migration Policy:The most important international experience
EWB continues to present a number of surveys on documents’ security and migration policy issues. One of them highlights an undeniable experience of Poland and Serbia in the area of migration policy. Serbia and Poland had overcome a long way to solve the problems in the area of migration policy. The attention is also paid to cooperation with NGOs and think tanks.
The most important for Ukraine elements of Polish experience in the area of migration policy are the inter-agency coordination, rational approach to the countering illegal migration and efficient cooperation between the government and the civil society.
Some vital migration challenges of Serbia, such as refugees and IDP problem (after the wars of the 1990s) are not actual ones for Ukraine. At the same time, such issues as migration legislation and institution building, interagency coordination, visa policy modernisation, migration profile creation should be considered carefully.
Poland
Efficient domestic inter-agency coordination
In Ukraine — as in Poland — there is no single governmental body with competences that encompass all migration and migrant issues. However, the Polish practice of cooperation between different ministries and agencies attests to the fact that the majority of problems can be solved through cooperation between them, or even by well thought-out organisation within one agency. Moreover, mutual assistance is not just possible between power structures (such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Border Guard) There are also examples of well-established cooperation between executive and other structures.
In particular, the National Labour Inspectorate (Państwowa Inspekcja Pracy), a special body which is subordinate to the Seym and is authorized to check labour legislation compliance, effectively cooperates with the Border Guard and police when conducting checks on employers using foreign labour. Joint document checks allow them not only to detect offenders, but also to apply coercive measures against them when necessary — which would be impossible if Labour Inspectorate officials acted on their own.
It is important to develop a system of exploitation of resources that are available within one agency. For instance, in view of the multiethnic character of migration flow, the Border Guard and Illegal Migrants Temporary Detention Centres need interpreters in exotic languages. Fulltime or part-time hiring of such specialists by each Centre where illegal migrants are housed is too expensive. Instead, every head of a regional department of the Border Guard has information about interpreters who cooperate with other departments and Detention Centers. If needed, it is possible to quickly summon such a specialist to the section of the border where a certain language skill is needed.
The significance of this experience for Ukraine is clear, due to its obvious lack of financial resources for migration programmes. So, rational use of the present capabilities of the various services can also produce considerable results
Moving away from the priority of repressive solutions
One of the cornerstones of modern Polish migration policy is recognition of the fact that migration problems cannot be settled exclusively by police measures. Numerous amnesties for illegal migrants have given opportunities to thousands of migrants of Vietnamese and Armenian origin who came to the country shortly before or after the collapse of the Soviet Union and socialist block to settle legally and successfully integrate into Polish society.
The government plans to announce one more amnesty, which can be used by immigrants from the former USSR, including quite a large number of Ukrainians. Poland has resisted the temptation to apply repressive measures even in the case of openly criminal actions (e.g. the hijacking by emigrants from Chechnya, mainly women, of a train to Strasbourg). There are no limitations on the activities of human rights NGOs, which monitor whether migrants’ rights are respected. Poland’s experience might serve as an obvious example, showing that the adoption of such an approach does not lead to an increase in migration flow nor open up a vast range of options for violations on the part of migrants.
Unfortunately, such a philosophy is not accepted at all levels of the Ukrainian state machine — most officials still prefer rather repressive measures.
Cooperation with non-governmental organisations and think‑tanks and wide- ranging discussions on the social problems of migration
The traditional drawback of Ukrainian decision making practices in the migration sphere is their “behind-closed-doors” nature — as a rule, drafts laws are prepared by ministries or certain MPs without public discussion. Independent professionals are only invited to participate in individual cases, while non-governmental organisations and, in particular, associations of migrants themselves and organisations which provide services and assistance to migrants are ignored altogether. In this context, the Polish experience testifies to the effectiveness of an active dialogue between all stakeholders and open public discussion on the problems.
To illustrate the differences in approaches and intensity levels of cooperation with NGOs, one can compare the information available on the official websites of Polish and Ukrainian agencies. For instance, the Polish Ministry of Labour and Social Policy not only has a special section on cooperation with NGOs, but it has also created a separate portal which covers all aspects of this cooperation, including a database of projects implemented by NGOs etc. The website of the Ukrainian Ministry of Labour and Social Policy has a section titled “Civil society organisations”, but it is usually only updated once every three months, and the update is rather nominal.
What appears even more nominal is the content of the corresponding section on the website of the State Committee of Ukraine on Nationalities and Religions (for comparison — see the corresponding section of the website of the Office for Foreigners (Urząd do Spraw Cudzoziemcow). However, this problem is not only one of Ukrainian bureaucracy, but also reflects the considerably more active position of Polish NGOs. Thus, the process of learning from Poland’s experience should simultaneously apply to both government and civil society in Ukraine. Thus, in our opinion, the main lesson in the shaping of migration policy which Ukraine can learn from Poland is that the foundations of such policy should be: a rational approach to the solution of concrete problems, flexibility and efficiency in making administrative decisions, and broad involvement of society in discussions regarding pressing migration issues.
Serbia
During the period 2008–2010 for the first time in the Republic of Serbia, a comprehensive migration flows monitoring policy had to be established, and a Serbian migration profile defined Strategy Migration Management Strategy was adopted on July 23, 2009.
Recommendations and measures provided for in the Strategy: Contents of the Serbian migration profile shall be defined in accordance with the European integration requirements, taking into account specific characteristics of the Republic of Serbia.
• The Serbian migration profile shall be updated on regular basis
• Statistics shall be harmonised with EU standard requirements
• Normative and technical conditions shall be established for data exchange among relevant institutions
• Gather information, statistics and reports on migration in RS.
• Designate an institution responsible for data gathering
• Follow migration movement trend
The Strategy also lays the foundations for an institutional framework for migration policy development. It is defined in line with competences and duties that ministries and state institutions have in the area of migration within the Law on Ministries, other laws and appropriate normative acts and Strategies.
Coordination
In February 2009, the Government established a Coordination Body for Migration Monitoring and Management composed of ministers who are, within their purview, in charge of certain migration aspects. The Commissariat for Refugees is in charge of vocational, operational and administrative-technical tasks for the Coordination Body. The Coordination Body submits to the Government a written progress report every 90 days.
For Ukraine there should be a different body (as the Commissariat for Refugees is a specific Serbian institution connected to the legacy of the 1990s), but overall migration policy requires coordination because it is not possible to concentrate all the responsibility in one hand even if the Migration Service is created.
Legislation
Very important Law in this field is the Law on Foreigners26. Provisions of this Law which are of special importance refer to the establishment of central database which will encompass data recorded in special records (total of 21 records — 16 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and 5 of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
The central database can be used by authorised police officers in the Ministry of Interior, authorised civil servants of the Ministry in charge of foreign affairs and diplomatic-consular offices of the Republic of Serbia, for the purpose of performing their duties in accordance with competences provided for in this Law. Being authorised by the Minister in charge of internal affairs, the data from the central database can be used by other state institutions, when necessary, for the purpose of performing duties in their purview.
Changes of visa policy
With regard to movement and stay of foreigners in the Republic of Serbia, the Law on Foreigners also introduced types of visas in line with the Schengen standards. The Law defines requirements for entrance and stay of foreigners in the country, possibility of registering their residence through Internet, the existing types of visas that have been abolished and the new ones introduced (A — airport transit visa, B — transit visa, C — short stay visa and D — long stay visa). As regards visa types, it must be noted that, unlike before, D visa — for temporary stay — can also be obtained at diplomatic-consular offices of the Republic of Serbia. Tourist pass has been repealed, and border permit, which is issued under strictly regulated conditions and through the procedure stipulated by the Law, has been introduced. Temporary stay, which was previously regulated by by-laws, has been introduced. The law stipulates exceptionally high penalties for either aliens who violate provisions of the law or for citizens, physical and legal entities who do not report the stay of an alien.
Work on the establishment of the Visa Information System has not been finalised yet. A visa system of a county is a part of state security and its ability to manage borders in a coordinated manner. Establishment of such a system will provide support for the work of diplomatic-consular offices, as well as to the tasks regarding documentation checks on border posts which are the responsibility of the Ministry of Interior. Main holders of the project implementation are the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The solutions envisaged by the project are based on Schengen Catalogue best practices and in accordance with the EU Consular Instructions.
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