Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union

EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ms Cecilia Malmström and Belgian Federal State Secretary for Migration & Asylum Policy Mr Melchior Wathelet attend together with Belgian asylum officers a session of the European Asylum Curriculum (EAC) to express their support to this good example of practical cooperation between European Asylum administrations.

In the first days of the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU, the Belgian Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS) has the pleasure to welcome on Monday July 5th at 1 PM Ms Cecilia Malmström and Mr Melchior Wathelet to attend a training session of the European Asylum Curriculum, an important tool for reaching a Common European Asylum System (CEAS) by 2012.

The Stockholm Program aims to establish a Common European Asylum System based on high protection standards, with the full and inclusive application of the Geneva Convention on the status of refugees, the EU asylum Directives and other relevant international treaties. The objective should be that similar asylum cases should be treated alike through the EU and result in the same outcome.

The development of a common educational platform for national asylum officials of all EU member states is crucial in order to achieve such a higher degree of harmonization, by enhancing the convergence and ongoing quality with a view to reducing disparities of asylum decisions. The European Asylum Curriculum (EAC) has been developed with EU funding in order to reach that goal. In a close future this project will be hosted in the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) to be open in Malta later this year.

Now that the EAC training modules have been produced by EU experts from different national administrations and the Academic Odysseus Network, the next challenge is for the asylum administrations to implement those modules in the training programs for their staff members. “Together with the Swedish Migration Board, the Belgian Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons is implementing the EAC modules in a large scale in the training of its protection officers. By the end of 2010 more than 100 staff memebers will have been involved in this training”, says François Bienfait, Belgian Deputy Commissioner for Refugees and Stateless Persons and EAC Project Manager for Belgium, “We are also using EAC in a capacity building project with the asylum administration in Burundi”.

Program

1.10 – 1.20 PM: presentation of the training participants

1.20 – 1.25 PM: presentation of the e.learning part of this EAC inclusion module by Mr Bienfait

1.25 – 1.50 PM: “face to face training” of the EAC module on Inclusion

1.50 – 2.00 PM: discussion between Ms Malmström, Mr Wathelet and training participants

2.00 – 2.15 PM: press moment with Ms Malmström, Mr Wathelet, Mr Bienfait or training participants
 

Journalists are required to confirm their presence at the latest on Monday July 5th at 9 AM by contacting Ms Tine Van Valckenborgh, + 32 499 24 60 93.

• for the press attending the entire meeting (including the training session), presence is required at 12.45 PM ; 
• for those attending only the Q&A session at 1.50 PM between Ms Malmström, Mr Wathelet and the training participants (after the training session), presence is required at 1.30 PM.