Regional seminar: Responses to the influx of the irregular migration across the border of Belarus. the border of Belarus: challenges and lessons learnt 13th of May 2022

On behalf of Diversity Development Group we would like to invite you to the regional seminar “Responses to the influx of the irregular migration across the border of Belarus: challenges and lessons learnt”. The seminar will be held in hybrid format (face-to-face and online) and will take place on 13th of May 2022, between 13:00-16:00 Vilnius time. The seminar will be held in English. 

The seminar is organized within the project National Integration Evaluation Mechanism (NIEM)— which monitors and measures refugee integration policies in 14 EU Member States.

The aim of the seminar is to present comparative analysis of Latvian and Lithuanian Governments responses to the influx of the irregular migration across the border of Belarus. In 2021 the illegitimate president of Belarus A. Lukashenko threatened to flood Europe with migrants after new EU targeted economic sanctions. He has signed the decree allowing citizens of 73 countries to come without visas and stay in Belarus for up to five days supposedly to get COVID-19 vaccine shots. The irregular migration into countries neighbouring Belarus started to grow in June 2021. In July responding to the rapid increase of undocumented migrants Governments of Latvia and Lithuania declared the extraordinary situation and took other measures to control the situation. Analysis of the Governments responses and taken measures will be presented and discussed in this seminar. Additionally, insights about reactions of Polish government will be provided by representative of the Institute of Public Affairs, Poland and overall analysis of 14 EU Member states long-term refugee integration policy frameworks will be presented by representative of the Migration Policy Group, Belgium. Please see below the detailed agenda of the seminar.

The seminar will take place in the ibis Vilnius Centre hotel, Rinktines str. 18, 9322 Vilnius.

Please register to the seminar by the afternoon of the 12th of May here and let us know if you will participate online or face to face. For those, willing to participate online, we will send the information and meeting link on the day before the event.

For additional information please contact Giedre Blazyte or Jurga Mataityte-Dirziene: giedre@diversitygroup.lt or jurga@diversitygroup.lt