Cidade Velha, 30 November - 1 December 2016, hosted by Cabo Verde and co-chaired by Portugal.
The meeting on visa facilitation took place in Cidade Velha, Cabo Verde, under the co-presidency of Cabo Verde and Portugal. Members of the Khartoum Process (EU Horn of Africa Migration Route Initiative), were also invited to participate.
The main objective of this meeting was to discuss existing legal frameworks in the area and to reflect on visa delivery procedures. Indeed, well-managed mobility creates added value for the development of millions of people every day, raises competitiveness of concerned countries and enriches their societies. The meeting provided the occasion to identify a list of shared political and operational objectives.
This important meeting is in line with one of the sixteen priority areas of the Valletta Action Plan for 2016, adopted by the Heads of State Summit on Migration, held in Malta in 2015. More specifically, the Action Plan recommends to the partners of the Rabat Process and the Khartoum Process to “engage, in a spirit of partnership, in the creation of positive synergies between negotiations on visa facilitation and discussions in other areas such as readmission, as an element of the comprehensive logic of the Action Plan.”
