Exchange of Experience between the Russian Federation and Southern European Regions in the Field of Migrant Reintegration Policies

This article provides a short oudine of a project initiated in 1994 by the European Commission and aimed at organizing exchanges of experience in the field of socioeconomic reintegration of returnees between the regional authorities of Andalucia (Spain) and East Macedonia-Thrace (Greece), and the federal authorities of Russia. This project is implemented under the European Commission's ECOS/OUVERTURE program, which supports the establishment of cooperation networks between regional and local authorities in the European Union, Central/Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union on a variety of development-oriented topics. The overall objective of this network on migration, entided MIGRA, is to enable the Russian Federation, and to a lesser extent Macedonia-Thrace, to benefit from experience gained by Andalucia in reintegrating its returning migrants. Return migration, as substantial research has demonstrated, can be of intrinsic relevance to regional socioeconomic development. Migrants, who tend to reintegrate into their regions of origin, have a clear potential to revitalize economically disadvantaged and demographically unbalanced regions by trans? ferring new skills and experience, if not by promoting new investment and job-inducing activities. In the case of the MIGRA partner regions, the setting up of an interregional network on the reintegration of migrants is even more appropriate and timely after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the resulting mass migration of Russians and ethnic Greeks.