Milan hosted an international seminar on the management of migrations in the Western Mediterranean organized by the think thanks network Medthink 5 + 5, which is coordinated by the IEMed, in collaboration with the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean (Barcelona) and the Institute for International Policy Studies (ISPI), from the Italian city.

The participants of the first session open to the public have discussed about migrants and refugees movements in Western Mediterranean region, as well as about the challenges and opportunities that these movements present for the Dialogue 5+5 countries ((Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, Malta, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Libya and Tunisia).

The responses given so far by the national and European authorities to a crisis that has affected the entire region have been analyzed and special attention has been given to how metropolitan cities have managed the arrival of migrants and refugees and how integration policies have been developed.

Some of the participants of the event have been Marisa Farrugia, a special envoy of the Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean; José Luis Pardo, ambassador for the migrations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain; Luigi Vignali, director general of immigration policies of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Senén Florensa, president of the Delegate Commission of the IEMed, as well as Hassan Boubakri (Center of Tunis for Migration and Asylum), Ennio Codini(Associate Professor of Public Law, Political and Social Sciences Faculty, Sacred Heart Catholic University of Milan), Mustafa El Sagezli (Libyan Program for Reintegration and Development), Hana Jaber (Arab Reform Initiative), Iván Martín (GRITIM – Interdisciplinary Research Group on Migration, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona), Hocine Labdelaoui (Center for Research in Economics Applied to the Development, Algeria), and Roger Albinyana and Xavier Aragall (IEMed).