During the Hungarian Presidency a seminar on combating the new forms of human trafficking was held in the Hungarian Ministry of Interior in Budapest on 4-5 April 2011. Beside the experts from 27 member states, the representatives of the European Committee, the EUROPOL, the EUROJUST, and the Vienna based ICMPD (International Centre for Migration Policy Development), and also the IOM Budapest (International Organisation for Migration, Regional Mission for Central and South-Eastern Europe) attended the meeting.

The European Committee, at the meeting, was represented by Myria Vassiliadou, the coordinator in matters against human trafficking.

The most important questions on the agenda of the seminar were the identified shortcomings based on the analysis of the questionnaire, the further elaboration of conclusions and recommendations, and further consultation in order to develop the Council’s conclusions, and finally the adoption of the so-called “Budapest Recommendations”.

As the preparation for the chairmanship, a questionnaire was designed to draw attention to areas, apart from the sexual exploitation of human beings, for example to exploitation for work purposes, begging etc, and to the regulatory and institutional comparisons of the Member States, and to the occurring experiences they may share. They regarded reasonable to map all these areas.

The initiative in no way intended to overlap the upcoming strategy of the Commission. However, resolutions made here may provide useful ideas for future strategy, as it is of special interest to the EU and its Member States, that they should be able to combat human trafficking not in parallel but collaborating with each other.

(kormany.hu)