The Czech European Union Presidency will organise a Ministerial Conference “Building Migration Partnerships”, which will take place in Prague on 27-28 April 2009.
   

The ambition of the Ministerial Conference Building Migration Partnerships is, through joint preparatory activities, to elaborate a joint declaration, which would enable the participating states to qualitatively improve joint relations towards genuine migration partnerships. This objective aims at providing support to the EU Global Approach to Migration in its Eastern and South-Eastern dimension and the principle has been just recently given a prominent place in the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum prepared by the French EU Presidency.
 

The Czech EU Presidency will be in its efforts assisted by Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.
 

The First  Preparatory meeting in Prague on 30-31 October 2008 gathered representatives on senior officials level from 39 countries (EU and Schengen Member States, South-Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Turkey), the European Commission, EU agencies Frontex and Europol and 4 international organisations (ICMPD, UNHCR, IOM, CIS Executive Committee).
 

The participating states as well as the European Commission and international organisation supported the Czech Republic and its intention to organise the Ministerial Conference. The gathering allowed for active discussions on five thematic topics (fight against illegal migration; return, readmission and reintegration; labour migration; integration; migration and development), which will serve as a basis for preparation of ministerial recommendations to be adopted at the Ministerial Conference. 
   

The Second Preparatory meeting took place in Antalya, Turkey on 16 – 17 February 2009. The living and fruitful discussion conducted during the meeting dramatically improved quality of the draft declaration based on the Prague Preparatory gathering. The number of delegates as well as participating countries has even grown up to 101 delegates from 51 states and international organisations. Such a rich participation shows a positive approach of the involved states to the Czech initiative.
 

The further preparatory meetings on the level of senior officials will be held as follows: