Antalya: As the monitoring and steering body of the Budapest Process, the annual Senior Officials Meeting reported on the activities in 2016, including the meetings of the Silk Routes Working Group and the Silk Routes Partnership Project and presented a five-year proposal for the 2017 – 2021 cooperation framework.
Hosted by Turkey, the meeting gathered over 45 representatives from 23 participating states and several international and regional organisations. The meeting included discussions on operational, thematic and structural priorities for the Budapest Process as of 2017. Considering the high importance given to the Process by its participating countries, the discussions touched upon short-term needs and long-term objectives and at the same time financial sustainability during the next funding period 2017 – 2021.
The Budapest Process is one of the longest-standing cooperation frameworks on migration for Europe and its eastern neighbours and during its more than 20 years of operation, it has developed from an information sharing tool between European countries in a pre-EU enlargement setting to a far reaching Europe-Asia forum for improving migration management.
