The government approved on Wednesday the National Strategy on Migration for 2015-2018 and the Action Plan for the current year, documents regarded as “another step for Romania in the efforts to modernize the management of the immigration process on the national territory.”
The source shows that the strategy aims at effective management of immigration, including strategic goals, specific targets and courses of action which reflect the policies established at European level, adapted to the national realities.
“For the next four years the effective management of immigration will be targeted, in all its aspects: to address the gaps in specific skills and to attract highly skilled workers, by having a more robust approach to illegal immigration and to readmission, including a good cooperation with third countries, to protect those who need help through a firm political asylum,” the press release reads.
Regarding asylum, the authorities seek to ensure better access to asylum for people in need of protection, a better quality of reception conditions and faster, more reliable decisions in this area.
“Given the problems faced by Romania’s immediate neighbouring countries, measures are envisaged for managing in a unified and coherent way the possible occurrence of an influx of illegal immigrants in Romania, generated by political, social, economic or military crisis situations. (…) The Romanian authorities will contribute to a flexible admission system, but at the same time, they will pay special attention to citizens from countries with high migration potential or which may affect national security,” adds the quoted source.
The strategy identifies a number of factors that may affect immigration and asylum, including maintaining the conflict situation in Syria, the reactivation of the conflict in Iraq, maintaining a volatile situation in areas near Romania’s borders (Ukraine, Transnistria), perpetuating the intensification of the Israeli – Palestinian armed conflict.
On the other hand, the document sets some general policy objectives relating to immigration, such as: promotion of legal migration, more rigorous controls of the legality of stay in Romania of citizens from third countries and proper enforcement of removal and restrictive measures, improving national asylum system.
The National Strategy includes specific objectives relevant in order to transpose and implement the overall strategic objectives. These include: facilitating the access of citizens of third parties that meet the needs of the labour force employment, favouring the citizens of third countries access to higher education and professions in Romania for areas identified as deficient.
Referring to the Action Plan for 2015, the Government considers that it is “a mean by which concrete activities are set, aiming to lead to the creation of a flexible system to halt the increasing phenomenon of migration”.