The Conference is held at the French National Assembly in Paris and is organised by the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

The conference aims to provide a platform for political dialogue among the parliamentarians of the Council of Europe member states and the neighbouring countries directly affected by the migrant crisis, as well as other migrant and refugee interest groups. The participants are discussing the special challenges faced by the first-asylum countries, transit countries and final destination countries, possible short-term and medium-term solutions and the root causes of the growing migration flow, sustainable solutions and cooperation with the countries of origin.

Meho Omerovic briefed the participants of the conference on the migrant situation in Serbia. He stressed that, though a transit country, Serbia meets all the standards concerning migrant protection. Since the beginning of the migrant crisis the Government of the Republic of Serbia chose a pro-active approach to ensure adequate protection and assistance to those in trouble and showed readiness to, within its limits, face the growing influx of migrants. Massive effort went into providing the migrants, during their stay in Serbia, with adequate assistance, reception, temporary housing, healthcare, food and medicines, as well as all the information on asylum procedures, with full respect for their human rights. At the same time, Serbia is boosting border control to prevent smuggling and human trafficking. He also outlined the country’s efforts to register all the migrants, obtain biometric data and provide efficient access to the asylum system, but almost none of them want asylum in Serbia. He also listed some of the problems stemming from the key issue of whether Europe differentiates between migrants who have and those who do not have the right to seek asylum in the EU. In the end, he concluded that there is a clear need to pass a common policy or platform of activity on the migrations. The first step is to develop a humanitarian approach which means undertaking measures and actions aimed at precluding the flow of migration and ensuring the migrants’ human rights.

MPs Aleksandar Senic and Zarko Obradovic, members of the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, also took part in the conference.