3rd of August 2010, Capital Plaza Hotel, Bucharest

1. THE BENEFICIAL REGULARISATION OF IMMIGRATION IN ROMANIACoordinator:Iris AlexeAuthors:Louis UlrichȘtefan StănciugeluViorel MihăilăMarian Bojincă 3rd of August 2010, Capital Plaza Hotel, Bucharest

2. THE RESEARCH PURPOSE • Supporting the institutional system in terms of regularisation of immigration in Romania and associating this system with the European ones, taking into account that national features must be incorporated into European dynamics and immigration regularisation at the European level; B. Identifying and capitalizing national expertise on various institutional and organizational pillars with a view to accurate management of migration flows; • Establishing and promoting sound public policies, feasible and sustainable in the migration field, through capitalizing that proper expertise to participate in the process of analyzing, evaluating and promoting the method in order to obtain an accurate management of immigration in Romania.

3. OBJECTIVES – Diagnosis on the immigration management • Exploring perceptions and attitudes of the institutional players/agents towards the normative framework and towards tools of the management within the immigration phenomenon; • Analysis of the new issues in the area, after establishing the Romanian laws in the immigration field; • Analysis of the peculiar issues of the immigration integration into the Romanian society; • Making propositions and recommendations on the beneficial regularisation of immigration in Romania with a view to establishing, amending and changing some procedures in the overall approach regarding the immigration phenomenon in Romania.

4. The institutional paradigm defines the research rationale: the Romanian public institutions are considered agents specialized and are part of an institutional network which must operate effectively in the management of public policies regarding immigration Arguments • The approach focus on the institutional system functioning which must operate within following elements: coherence, adaptability, relevance, prognosis and special preparation to follow the social prediction line; 2. The above-mentioned paradigm are also introduced by the institutional culture of the administrative elite involved in the immigration regularisation, the prescriptive system of the proposed expertise and by the basis of performing and analyzing the information of daily/regular activities. Features of a coherent system The Romanian public institutions dealing with the immigration regularisation phenomenon are participate in the decisional process and/or implement and carry on the insight decisions, and are facing also the adjusting aspect. This approach must be seen as programmatic, not spontaneous due to some changes in the political and social environment.

5. Methodology of a diagnosis on the regularisation of immigration in Romania • Analysis of the strengths and weaknesses in the legislation area, in the regulation and institutional framework on the immigration field, analysis of the impact of the current normative system, taking into account that we must to identify solutions for improving the area; • Exploring perceptions and attitudes of different institutional players towards the normative framework and towards tools of the management within the immigration phenomenon; • Analysis of the new issues revealed in the area after establishing a Romanian legislation in the immigration field; • Analysis of the immigrants’ integration into the Romanian society. The triangulation principle • raw data obtained through qualitative methodology based on the semi-structured interview; • secondary data obtained from the analysis of official documents – legislation, public policy strategies, statistics; • secondary data obtained through documentation analysis, from the researches carried out between 2006-2009, within the Migration and Development Program.

6. THE TRIANGLE of the beneficial regularisation of immigration - „3D”The dynamics of the phenomenon – The dynamics of the management system – The dynamics of the field analysis • Coordination of the legislation and of its due practices with the dynamics of the phenomenon in the EU member countries. • The management of the mobilities on the European labor market has to be completed with the analysis and the management of mobilities on the national and regional labor market. • The policy of the Romanian state towards immigration: several professionals of the field consider that the immigration policy will maintain itself within the limits of last years. • Two systemic projects for the beneficial regularisation of the immigration are in work: one focusing on the labor force migration and one focusing on the problem of communication and informing regarding migration. • The Schengen space will generate a “natural growth” of the immigrants number – in a few years, Romania will become extremely attractive for all the immigrants categories, as destination for both legal and illegal immigration.

7. Schengen Space – a challenge for immigration regularisation in Romania? FIELDS that need increased attention • The management of extern borders, that has an efficiency strongly connected with two resources categories: • a) equipment and technology supply at local and regional level; • b) training for the human resources in all competent institutions at local/regional level. (2) Gathering the efforts of the competent institutions in the regulation of the immigration and the prevention of the illegal immigration: The Romanian Immigration Office, the Frontier Police, other structures of the Ministry of Administration and Interior. (3) Respecting rights and the freedoms of different immigrants categories. Although significant progresses have been noted, the Romanian legislation and its implementation methods need: • Amendments, • Adaptations, • Reformulations, • Amendments regarding the rights and freedoms of different immigrants categories.

8. SYSTEMIC ANSWERS at risks and vulnerabilities Answer 1. Integrated approach in the regulation of the immigration phenomenon The present organization form has a functioning potential – the institutional unification of the fields regarding migration and asylum in 2007. The trust of the experts in this type of organization is amplified by the good practice examples offered in other countries. RECCOMENDATIONS To answer the need of an integrated approach in regulating the immigration phenomenon, the interpretation of the data obtained through interviews leads: - Either to the idea of setting up/creation of an only public institution responsible of the regularisation of immigration in Romania; - Or to the building of a more efficient functional and informational mechanism and for the inter-institutional coordination in order to harmonize and increase the efficiency of the activities of institutions with prerogatives in the regularisation of the immigration in Romania.

9. SYSTEMIC ANSWERS to risks and vulnerabilities Answer 2. Continuing the reform process The experts acknowledge the progress done in the regularisation of the immigration phenomenon in Romania. RECCOMENDATIONS • The experts of the Romanian Immigration Office propose an organizing philosophy of the field: organizing the juridical frame on three levels – the Law, the Government Decisions, the implementation procedures. • The implementation practices of the national integrated system of immigration management • (a) adaptationto the national specificand • (b) efficient communication within the institutional system. • (3) the existence of a unitary decisional center, to reunite the competencies and activities carried out at the moment by dispersed institutions, which creates communication barriers in the present. • (4) inclusion and definition of the specific roles of the local authorities in the system. Moreover, the local authorities’ role, associated by the respondents with the immigrants’ integration, has to be assumed by them and correlated with the functioning of the national integrated system of beneficial regularisation of the immigration.

10. SYSTEMIC ANSWERS to risks and vulnerabilities Answer 3. Strategic vision at national level regarding the regularisation of the immigration RECCOMENDATIONS (a) The national strategy in the immigration field has to be reorganized, with acoherent approach and around a strategic vision that should become thereference point of any future modifications and of the concrete implementation practices. (b) The beneficial regularisation of immigration within an assumed national strategy implies thecorrelation of the information within the different components of the national system, which are connected with the immigration issues: the system of medical assistance, social assistance, education, juridical system and others. (c) The correlation of the policies specific to each field of the immigration regularisation in Romania (1) between them; (2) with the public policies regarding emigration/mobility with labor purpose of the Romanian and labor market in Romania.

11. SYSTEMIC ANSWERS to risks and vulnerabilities Answer 3. Strategic vision at national level regarding the immigration regularisation (d) The legislation in the immigration field has to be elaborated in accordance with the latest definitions and analyses of the phenomenon at European and international level. (e) The necessity for cooperation with social partners with different perspectives on this type of policies. (f) Public discourse on immigration is a fundamental component of the beneficial regularisation of immigration in Romania. The possible effects of an inadequated public discourse on immigration could generate or strengthen stereotypes and negative representations of immigrants at the level of Romanian population, which would lead to difficulties in terms of their integration.

12. SYSTEMIC ANSWERS to risks and vulnerabilities Answer 4. Approach centered on the immigrant – specific field of intervention within the national integrated system of regularisation of the immigration. The focus of the migration policies on the immigrant, as a person with rights and obligations. • a. the tolerated category. The Romanian legislation should clearly regulate the section regarding the section concerning the asylum solicitants whose applications have been rejected. • b. legislative obscurity concerning the victims’ assistance – alien citizens put to traffic and exploited in Romania. The “tolerated” statute cancels the assistance right for the immigrants (usually women) who are victims of the person traffic or of the exploitation of different types. • RECCOMENDATION The configuration of a national immigration policy, centered on fundamental rights and freedoms of the immigrants.

13. 8 RECCOMENDATIONS for a national immigration policy centered on fundamental rights and freedoms. • The Romanian legislation and the due practices have to make provisions and to apply a set of measures concerning the social and juridical identity of the immigrant: minimum standards of social, medical, juridical assistance, the granting of the right to work and the right to a family life. 2. The Romanian legislation has to modify certain regulations, such as the institution of the civil partnership, unrecognized by the Romanian state, to assure that the immigrants’ rights are respected and in order not to provoke infringement procedures on Romania, from the European Commission. 3. Clarifying the regulations concerning unaccompanied minors and persons who reached 18 years old, at the moment insufficiently clear. This leads to dysfunctionalities concerning the juridical representation of the unaccompanied minor, asylum solicitant and in the same time interferes negatively in his process of integration in the Romanian society. 4. Clarifying the practical problems concerning the relation of the immigrant with different systems: medical assistance, banking, social assistance and integration on the labor market, etc.

14. 8 RECCOMENDATIONS for a national immigration policy centered on fundamental rights and freedoms. 5. Clarifying the problems concerning immigration for labor – field that needs interventions both at legislative and institutional level and in terms of applicability – e.g. resolving the problem of the persons detached on the Romanian territory by applying the European Directive 96/71. 6. Clarifying some problems concerning the insertion of the alien workers on the labor market – e.g. the problem concerning a proper allocation of resources, especially for coveringservices aimed for this category: Romanian language classes, interpretation, immigrants’ documents translation (diplomas, certificates) and acknowledged classes of professional training. 7. Specific policies addressed to immigrant communities. 8. In the same time, some of the respondents consider that the Romanian state should elaborate and apply public policies such as educational policies for the immigrants’ children in Romania.