Faced by the EU’s Return Policy
Andean Foreign Ministers propose a comprehensive dialogue with the EU about migrants

Lima, June 13, 2008.- In a communication delivered today, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Andean Community countries proposed to the European Union a joint reflection on the Return Policy approved on June 5th by the Ministers of the Interior of the EU.  

In that communication, they pointed out that the negative consequences that policy may have on the more than three million Andean migrants residing in Europe “deserve careful study by our governments.” 

The Foreign Ministers stressed the fact that it is highly important to the governments of the Andean Community countries to ensure the protection of the human rights of migrants, regardless of their status, based on a comprehensive approach to international migration that includes the orderly management of migratory flows. 

In that connection, they called upon the pertinent authorities to undertake a comprehensive and wide-ranging dialogue about migration that will make it possible to identify common challenges and areas for cooperation that interlink the management of migration and the promotion of development. 

This is precisely what was agreed at the Fifth Latin America and the Caribbean – European Union Summit held in Lima last May and incorporated into the Declaration and Joint Communiqué of the Heads of State of the Andean Community and the European Union Troika, they noted.  

The communication signed by Foreign Ministers, David Choquehuanca of Bolivia; Fernando Araujo of Colombia; María Isabel Salvador of Ecuador; and José Antonio García Belaunde of Peru, is addressed to the Acting President and the Secretary General of the Council of the European Union, Dimitrij Rupel and Javier Solana, respectively, and to the European (Union) Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner.