The European Institute of Romania organized, on November 18, 2021, between 10:30h – 13:30h (online format, ZOOM platform), the final conference of the European Project „A Key Access to the EU Rights – EUReKA”. Its main objective was to present to the EU mobile citizens and stakeholders this project’s final conclusions and results.
Apart from the targeted audience, the event was attended by EUReKA’s coordinators, Centro Studi e Ricerche IDOS (Italy), as well as by representatives of other partner organizations from the six EU Member States that were involved in this project: Grad Zagreb (Croatia), Tandem Plus (France and Portugal), Acli eV (Germany), Associazione Cristiane Lavoratori Italiani ACLI, Patronato ACLI, Fondazione Mondo Digitale, ANCI Lazio (Italy), European Institute of Romania, Novapolis Association and National Trade Union Confederation “Cartel ALFA” (Romania).
The meeting was attended by distinguished European and Romanian officials from the European Labour Authority, the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In the beginning of the conference, the host together with the Italian coordinator of this project addressed a welcoming speech. Two main sections followed. The first was named Information for mobility, and the second one, EUREKA, The Project. Both of them led to a Q&A session. The last part of the event brought into discussion two specific sections: We are EUReKA – dedicated to partners and stakeholders involved in this project’s implementation – and Conclusions – section that highlighted the main results, lessons learned and steps to be followed in order to ensure a successful project completion.
During the event, important aspects were highlighted, such as:
- The protection and promotion of diversity is a fundamental practice for the European Union. If we leave behind this ideal, we will automatically alienate from EU Founding Parents’s dream.
- The European Labour Authority – ELA encouraged the dialogue between representatives of European citizens, social partners and experts from the EU Member States, in order to agree on common approaches to labor mobility to be further exploited at national level.
- This project’s 3 deliverables, Handbook on best practices, Portal and Application, provide trustworthy and accessible information to the mobile citizens of the European Union. These are valuable and useful tools for users, taking into account the facilitation of their access to the information needed in order to exercise the European citizenship.
- The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA)’s website, with “Travel safely”, its application meant to help those interested in crossing Romania’s borders, was presented as an example of good practices in terms of providing the mobile citizens with the necessary information, in real time.
- In March, The Ministry of Labour and Social Protection (MLSP) launched the campaign Are you working abroad? Get informed, work legally and know your rights and elaborated The Action Plan on informing and protecting the citizens who migrate for work purposes, in the same time developing a collaboration protocol with the Ministry of Transport. The main objective was to prevent the undeclared work and to provide European citizens with the necessary information about their rights, taking into account the special conditions created by the Covid-19 pandemic which have changed the entry requirements into the countries where seasonal workers whether are in transit or work.
- In the future, we need to increase the interconnection capacity between several levels of authority: local, regional, national and European.
- Cooperation with public authorities is necessary for data collection and its dissemination to the citizens.
- All the participants involved in the project’s implementation highlighted the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a consequence, the development of the project was affected by the transfer of its activities into the virtual space.
- During the conference, were also expressed the need to continue updating the information provided by the digital tools of the project (portal and application), as well as the suggestion of the later ones’ development.