On 6 October 2020, ICMPD Director General was a keynote speaker at an event organised by the German Embassy in Sofia. German Ambassador Christoph Eichhorn underlined that Germany wants to use the remaining time of Germany’s Council Presidency to push forward rapidly the negotiations of the "New Pact on Migration and Asylum" and invited the ICMPD Director General to share his views on the Pact with more than 20 state representatives and representatives of international organisations.
"The pact puts a strong focus on all aspects related to the external dimension and on the interlinkages with other policy areas like trade, development and economic cooperation, also involving public-private-partnership. We as ICMPD can only welcome this focus", said ICMPD Director Michael Spindelegger during the event. "The joint work on the Pact will continue this year and the following years. However, there is a solid basis now. This time it might really be possible to find common solutions and a good compromise."
The invitation of the German Embassy in Bulgaria is of particular importance to ICMPD, with Germany being the latest state to become a member of ICMPD and a key actor in the European and global cooperation on migration. Bulgaria is an ICMPD Member State since 2003 and together, ICMPD and Bulgaria have carried out plenty of successful projects and initiatives on varied topics of migration.
Find more information on the German Embassy in Sofia here.