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The Athens Migration Policy Initiative (AMPI) was launched in the summer
of 2002 as a joint project of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. The mission of AMPI is to
introduce thoughtful, innovative ideas on migration into the European
policy debate.
Under the aegis of AMPI, over a dozen of the leading migration experts
in the world have advised the Greek government, during its 2003 Presidency
of the European Union and beyond, on how best to formulate a harmonized
European approach to managing migration flows, integrating legal migrants,
and establishing more effective control over the Union's external borders.
Their efforts have been based on the conviction that a balanced, comprehensive
EU migration policy regime is needed to maximize the benefits and minimize
the costs of migration. Such an approach is vital to the growth, prosperity,
and competitiveness aims of the Union, and it must equally contribute
to the security of the European Union's borders, to social cohesion in
European societies, and to enhanced cooperation between the EU and third
countries.
AMPI has assisted the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs in developing
and pursuing thoughtful, constructive, and practical migration policies
that can allow the European Union to achieve progress toward a more effective
and decidedly more affirmative migration management agenda. AMPI continues
to carry out its mission by bringing to the attention of the Ministry
and relevant EU actors in-depth and knowledge-based policy responses to
complex international migration issues.
In doing so, AMPI relies extensively on MPI's well-regarded multinational
senior staff, as well as on a world class "brain-trust" of migration
experts from leading institutions in Germany (Humboldt University), the
U.K. (the Institute for Public Policy Research and Oxford University),
the Netherlands (Amsterdam University), France (the Sorbonne), Belgium
(the Brussels-based Migration Policy Group), and Greece (the universities
of Athens and Patras).
AMPI set the following six broad goals for its work in 2003.
- Helping to shape a policy environment that kindles interest in-and
encourages serious EU-wide and national conversations about-progressive
labor-market, economic growth, and competitiveness policies as an essential
complement to the Union's border management and security agenda.
- Assisting policy makers and policy influencers throughout the EU understand
better the complex interactions among immigration, employment, and social
policies in the context of Europe's increasing demographic deficits.
- Creating space (by managing migration more thoughtfully) for European
states to meet their electors' sense of compassion toward those in need
of care, as well as their obligations under refugee and humanitarian
law, affirmatively and generously.
- Advancing Europe's policy agenda toward far-reaching societal (social
inclusion) and political integration policies for both citizens and
immigrants.
- Building, nurturing, and tapping into coalitions of public intellectuals
and institutional stakeholders willing-even eager-to assist the Greek
Government advance its progressive and affirmative agenda on migration.
- Providing analytical and policy-vetting support to coalitions that
advocate for thoughtful regional initiatives that hold a better promise
of managing migration more effectively through cooperative-even joint-efforts
among states that "send" and receive immigrants, as well as
those through which migrants transit.
The policy centerpiece of AMPI work in 2003 was the development, presentation,
and publication of a series of state-of-the-art policy essays on European
migration. These essays were presented at a conference sponsored by the
Greek Presidency of the European Union, from May 15-17 in Greece.
Click here
to access the Issue Papers on European migration.
Click here
to read the May Conference Summary Report.
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