SIRIUS Project ONLINE Policy Workshop – Social Partners’ Response to the Integration of Migrants and Refugees in the Labour Market

Date and time: 28 May, 14:00-16:15 

Please register here. 

The SIRIUS (Skills and Integration for Migrants, Refugees and Asylum Applicants in European Labour Markets) project provides a platform to discuss a humanitarian way of socially including migrants and refugees via the labour markets, activating their skills and ensuring they can reach the professional fulfilment that can only be healthy for personal development. As project partner, SOLIDAR is organising a policy workshop on 28 May, animated by the SIRIUS project research, on the role of social partners in enabling or preventing migrants and refugees to join the labour market, to facilitate synergies among social partners, civil society and policymakers on establishing which initiatives would serve best the needs of migrants and refugees. 

Skilled migrants, refugees and asylum seekers (MRAs) have the potential to benefit Europe tremendously if given the opportunity to activate their skills. Normalising the idea that migrants and refugees are a burden reflects the misguided way in which public authorities and populations across Europe treat a group of people, whose chance at a better life is put at risk. It is a question of humanity and universal rights to allow individuals to fulfil their goals and participate in society in a meaningful way. 

As the Covid-19 virus impacts populations worldwide, it is a moment to realise that though the pandemic does not discriminate there is a wide inequality gap in terms of the defences that people have at hand. In such moments, the most vulnerable in society, stranded at the borders, in asylum centres or in precarious situations need to be assisted. The situation is becoming critical for the moment when lockdown restrictions will be eased and there is the risk that some of the most vulnerable in society, migrant workers, would have to bear the brunt of the recession. This has to be prevented, as when the reconstruction begins, MRAs wish to contribute to and participate in society.  

The confirmed speakers are:

• MEP Pierfrancesco Majorino 
• Ludovic Voet (ETUC)
• Birgit Arens (EUROCHAMBRES)
• Geertrui Lanneau (IOM)
• Prof. Simone Baglioni (University of Parma)
• Mikael Leyi (SOLIDAR Secretary General).

​Please find attached the SIRIUS publication to be analysed in the debate and a policy brief summarising the policy recommendations that emerged from the SIRIUS report. 

Registered participants will be provided with instructions about joining the online platform used for the event at a later date. 

For any inquiries, please contact Andrei Frank: andrei.frank@solidar.org