On 20 March 2012 within the framework of the EU project «Support to Implementation of the EU Readmission Agreements with the Republic of Moldova, the Russian federation and Ukraine: Facilitation of Assisted Voluntary return and Reintegration (SIREADA)» the second meeting of the Regional Steering Committee was held in Chisinau.

The meeting was attended by representative of the Federal Migration Service of Russia in the Republic of Moldova, representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Moldova, the State Migration Service of Ukraine, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, representatives of IOM Missions to Russia, Moldova and Ukraine, EU Delegation to Moldova, UNHCR Moldova, UNHCR Ukraine and also representatives of NGOs of Moldova and Ukraine.

During the meeting the intermediate results of regional activities on projects in Russia, Moldova and Ukraine were presented. These results included the efforts made for the development of voluntary return mechanisms; initiating dialogue and capacity building in the field of reintegration of own nationals; carrying out monitoring of human rights compliance. In addition the participants marked the priorities which facilitate project implementation. First of all it is the necessity of further development of national reintegration mechanisms for own nationals, both from the normative and the operational point of view. Also procurement of biometric equipment was mentioned. In addition, representatives of the Border Guard Services of Moldova and Ukraine have expressed the wish to get acquainted with the work of such equipment in the relevant services of the European colleagues who have wide experience in this field.

With regard to the results already achieved in the framework of national activities of the project special attention was paid to legislative reviews on Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) which were prepared by experts in Moldova and the Russian Federation respectively. In the Russian Report terminology questions related to the institution of voluntary return were covered. Also a comparative analysis of the EU legal acts regulating migrants’ voluntary return as well as comparative analysis of the Russian migration legislation were made. Concrete recommendations of legal nature on amendments to the federal legislation needed for proper implementation of the AVR institution in the Russian Federation were proposed. In Moldova, a series of recommendations were developed for possible incorporation into national legislation and are currently under consideration. Another important result of projects funded by the European Union and implemented by the International Organization for Migration, including SIREADA, is contribution to formation of a tolerant attitude towards migrants and thus reduction of xenophobia.

In the final part of the Regional Steering Committee the visit to Migrant Accommodation Centre, the first institution of such kind on the territory of Moldova, was held. During the visit participants learned about the services provided by the Centre to migrants, as well as its design and organization of work.