BUKAREST, ROMANIA // Second National Coalition Meeting in Romania

A second meeting was called for February 17. This type, the participants have actively working on drafting the protocol of the new coalition and on defining it’s short and medium term advocacy goals. The name Coalition for the Rights of Migrants and Refugees was agreed upon. There will be ten founding members of the coalition. The Center for Documentation and Research in the Field of Migrant Integration will ensure the secretariat of the coalition in the first year, and the Center for Public Innovation in the second year. There will be yearly rotation system afterwards.
The ten funding members are all NGOs. Public institutions, universities, research institutes, and international organizations are welcome as supporters and signers of the Manifesto of the Coalition (under development). The participants identified several topics that can be addressed by the Coalition on the short term:

• simplifying various administrative procedures and documents required from migrants and their family members, beneficiaries of international protection, so they may access quickly and effectively the labor market and state services.
• finding ways to improve the situation of migrants that are missing one or more personal documents and have difficulties obtaining them because of the situation at home
• better access to the path for obtaining citizenship for beneficiaries of international protection

On the medium and long term, the Coalition wants to address the issue or recognition of competences and qualifications of migrants, which is the most important barrier to their access to the labor market in Romania.
The next meeting will take place on March 16. The members of the Coalition will propose concrete action plans for this year. Most likely a large event, announcing and launching the Coalition, will take place in May-June 2017.