The objective of the citizens panel on migration policies in Europe was to provide residents of Lublin with knowledge and facts on migration and European policies concerning the topic as well as discuss and work together on recommendations for the future. The group of residents was carefully selected in order to represent the diversity of the population of Lublin. The translation to Polish sign language was provided as well.
The event was divided into two parts: educational and workshop discussion in groups, after which all panellists gathered together to choose their final three recommendations.
5 speakers were invited to take part in the educational part of the panel:
Bartłomiej Balcerzyk, European Commission Representation in Poland
Aleksandra Olejnik, EUROCITIES Policy Advisor
Wiktoria Herun, Senior Specialist at Strategy and Investors Relations Office of the Municipality of Lublin
Tomasz Sieniow, President of the Rule of Law Foundation
Assef Salloom, owner of the “Mały Kopernik” Educational Centre in Lublin
The end result of the entire day of work and discussions were three recommendations:
- Educational activities among children and adult citizens of Europe as well as migrants in order to build consciousness on migration
- Sealing the external bordersof the European Union and increasing the efficacy of identity verification of persons entering the EU in order to provide safety for residents of the EU
- Support of the European Union towards member states in order to provide complex, free of charge language lessons, social integration, finding a job and apartment among residents of a city (without creating ‘ghettos’) as well as free of charge and easy accessible legal services on local and regional level.
These citizens' ideas, together with those coming from the other citizens consultations that will take place across Europe until February 2019, will be presented at the second Mayors Summit on the future of Europe on 20 and 21 March 2019.
As part of Mayors Summit, which will take place two months ahead of the European Parliament elections at the presence of more than 100 city politicians, EUROCITIES and the European Commission will present the panel results to national and European political leaders.
