For more than ten years, the Republic of Moldova has benefited from the Mobility Partnership with the European Union (PM), being one of the first pilot states, along with Cape Verde, which implements such a mechanism. The Joint Statement on the Republic of Moldova-EU Mobility Partnership was signed on 5 June, 2008 in Luxembourg.
The Mobility Partnership offers a political framework for cooperation with the EU (European External Action Service, European Commission, European Training Foundation - ETF and European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders - FRONTEX) and the EU Member States (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Hungary) in the field of migration, targeting all the dimensions of cooperation of EU Global Approach to Migration and Mobility (GAMM):
- organizing and facilitating legal migration and mobility;
- preventing and reducing irregular migration and trafficking in human beings;
- promoting international protection and strengthening the external dimension of asylum policy;
- maximizing the impact of migration and mobility on development.
The sources of funding for PM are:
- The Mobility Partnership Support Tool, the Mobility Partnership Facility (MPF);
- The European Neighborhood Instrument;
- Bilateral financial assistance from the EU Member States;
- National resources.
The coordination, monitoring and implementation mechanism of the PM includes:
- High-Level Meeting of the RM-EU PM (held in Brussels, once a year with the participation of representatives of the signatories of the Joint Statement). The meeting reviews the latest developments and decides common priorities for the immediate future).
- The meeting of the Local Platform of the RM-EU PM, transformed into the meeting of the Local Platform of the RM-EU PM in extended format (taking place in Chisinau, once a year with the participation of the representatives of the Joint Statement signatories at the local level as well as the third states, involved in the implementation of projects in PM related fields).
- The National PM Coordination Committee (headed by the Secretary of State for Health, Labor and Social Protection and includes representatives of all institutions with competences in the field of migration and related fields) meets as often as necessary, at least twice a year). The National Committee is responsible for reporting to the Government on the latest developments in PM implementation.
- MP Scoreboard data base - is the PM online monitoring tool that contains information on initiatives, partners responsible for implementing them, contact details, evaluation indicators, implementation periods, funding sources, and other relevant information in this sense. This allows systematization and organization of PM activities, by content, field of activity, partners, level of achievement, etc., generating the information required for reporting. The Scoreboard is also an open database that can be adjusted and updated by all parties to the Joint Declaration. The user guide is available on the scoreboard's electronic page and provides more information about its database and its opportunities.
Since 2008, more than 110 projects in the field of legal migration, documents security, migration policies, combating irregular migration, circular migration, etc. have been implemented and / or are being implemented.
At the initiative of the Republic of Moldova in 2012 was carried out the first Evaluation Exercise of the Mobility Partnership. The results of the evaluation showed that, in general, the Republic of Moldova is a successful case in implementing the valuable instrument of the MP. The instrument's flexibility has been recognized by respondents as one of its strengths, which allows the partner's priorities to be addressed in a focused manner. The MP allowed the framework for cooperation to be extended to several sectors of Justice and Home Affairs.
The second Mobility Partnership Evaluation Exercise was conducted in the period February-April 2018, based on questionnaires and interviews conducted with ICMPD support. Among the proposals of the evaluation report are the consolidation of human resources in the national institutions and their involvement in the process of PM implementation.
On June 12, 2018, the Extended Meeting of the Local Development Cooperation Platform of the RM - EU dedicated to the celebration of 10 years of PM implementation and a prospect for future cooperation was organized. The anniversary event shared the national authorities' experiences in implementing and managing projects in the field of migration and mobility management, migration in the development of national policies, the impact of the diaspora's involvement in the country's migration policies, the projects and successful initiatives, but also approached the new proposals aimed at strengthening the functioning mechanism of the PM. At the same time, it was emphasized the importance of placing the approach of migration in the local, regional and international context.