Employment and immigration of Ukrainians: Portuguese teams travel east
EMBASSIES || Portugal’s embassies in Warsaw (Poland) and Bucharest (Romania) are to be reinforced with teams of officials from the Institute of Employment and Vocational Training (IEFP) and the Immigration and Borders Service (SEF) to respond to requests from Ukrainian nationals seeking temporary protection in Portugal.
“By decision of the cabinet, Portugal will have in the embassy in Warsaw, but also in the embassy in Bucharest, four additional staff in each: two from SEF and two from IEFP to foster the reception in Portugal,” the secretary of state for internationalisation, Eurico Brilhante Dias, told Lusa.
The team members will be rotated every 10 days, according to Brilhante Dias, who explained their role will be to “help in the processing and even, in a first phase, in the integration with employment opportunities that already exist in Portugal.”
The secretary of state himself was due to travel to Warsaw on March 8-11 “in the context of promoting a concerted response to the refugee crisis from Ukraine, especially with logistics and humanitarian support.”
He explained one of the objectives is precisely to “accelerate” the implementation “of this working model between SEF, IEFP and the embassy in Warsaw and to talk to the Polish government to express our support.”
Brilhante Dias also told Lusa that he would have meetings with Polish authorities, Portuguese businesses and associations that are providing support for Ukrainian refugees to come to Portugal to seek temporary protection.
The aim is “to show that Portugal is able to quickly provide a legal framework for reception and correspond to the willingness that the Portuguese have shown to help,” he said.
Brilhante Dias cited the importance of municipal councils being ready to liaise with the existing Ukrainian community in Portugal, to promote initiatives to lay on transport from countries neighbouring Ukraine, citing
“councils that have sought to host, but also those that with us coordinated the departure of buses towards, essentially, Poland, but in the particular case of Leiria’s city council, buses that went to Hungary.”
He also said that he would soon be going to Romania, while the government is “also following what is happening in Slovakia and Hungary” in order to express to the governments of those countries “a clear idea that Portugal has a legal framework for the reception [of Ukrainians], job search and integration in the social network and housing offer, which is being very well managed by colleagues for migration”.
The secretary of state also noted that there are airlines which have expressed readiness to organise the transportation of Ukrainians to Portugal.
“There are also other support initiatives, which we continue to study at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for example proposals from operators expressing willingness to do air transport operations,” he said. “But, in due course, we will see when they can materialise.”