Dear members, friends and partners,

On November 21st 2023 you are warmly invited to join us at a hybrid event (in Vienna and online via Zoom) for the conference of CESI’s EU-co-funded project on:

Refugee Reception and Integration

Building welcoming communities through resilient and performing public administrations and services

November 21st 2023 | Wien 1010, Schenkenstraße 4 und via Zoom| 14:00 – 17:00
Interpretation from/to DE/EN

Register here

Recent years in Europe have been marked by a state of perma-crisis during which public administrations and service and their staff have been put under enormous pressure to perform well and more – in situations that have been extremely difficult for them.

This has been most recently and dramatically exhibited by the Covid crisis but was equally evident in other previously challenging times such as the 2008 financial and economic crisis, the fight against terrorism, and the 2015 migration crisis.

Based on the experience made in the aftermath of the latter, and confronted with the migration consequences of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, public services and administrations in Europe are play a fundamental role in the reception and integration of displaced people, including refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced persons (IDPs) – among them millions of refugees from Ukraine who are falling under EU Temporary Protection.

As the quality of the public services performed – in particular by local and regional governments – is essential for the smooth reception and integration of refugees, this conference aims to shed light on the respective challenges and needs, and on different possible strategies to provide a welcoming environment, among them access to basic services (such as healthcare, education and housing), labour market integration, language courses, and skilling opportunities.

Agenda

#InvestInPublicServices #ACTIVER #SocialEurope #EU2030

14:00 Welcome & registration 

14:30 Welcome address & introduction 

Norbert Schnedl, CESI Vice-President and President of European Federation of Public Services Employees (EUROFEDOP), GÖD 

Klaus Heeger, Secretary General, CESI 

Tommaso Grossi, moderator of the conference 

14.40 Keynote address 

Alberto Horst-Neidhart, Senior Policy Analyst and Head of the European Diversity and Migration programme, European Policy Center (EPC)  

Catherine Woollard, Director of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), (tbc) 

15:10 Insights by experts: EU responses to migration 

Katerina Dimitrakopoulou, Head of Sector – Integration, Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME), European Commission 

Klara Fóti, Senior Policy Manager, Eurofound 

Otto Aiglsperger, President of the CESI Expert Commission ‘Public Administrations’, GÖD/Eurofedop 

Heather Roy, Board Member, Social Services Europe, (video message) 

15.30 Coffee break 

16.00 Insights by experts: Strong public services  

Daniel Terzenbach, Member of the Executive Board of the German Federal Employment Agency, responsible for regions
(video message) 

Javier Jordan de Urries Sagarna, Vice-President of CESI, Spanish Central Independent for Public Employees’ Trade Union (CSIF) 

Matthäus Fandrejewski, dbb jugend and CESI Youth Representative 

Elisabeth Schmidt-Hieber, Advisor Advocacs for SOS Children’s Villages Austria 

16.30 Closing Remarks 

Lukas Mandl,  Member of the European Parliament  

Klaus Heeger, Secretary General, CESI 

Tommaso Grossi, moderator of the conference 

17.00 End of the conference