Emotional health, stigma and identity

The Implementation of the EU’s Approach to Circular Migration Through Legal and Policy Routes

“…191 According to the latest publicly available data, five hospitality professionals remained in Germany and only one nurse returned to Georgia despite the employment opportunities and financial incentives foreseen under the project as part of the reintegration measures. 192 As one interviewee emphasised in 2014, the project could not be considered a failure just because some of the participants decided to prolong their stay in Germany, as this was an indication of a problem, thereby preventing them from returning to Georgia. 193 In line with that, the project was regarded as successful by the Georgian authorities and there was interest in continuing with this kind of scheme with other Member States on the basis of the developed Manual on Circular Migration Scheme and in line with Georgia's Migration Strategy (2016-2020) of facilitating circular migration.…”

“…196 One of the lessons learnt from the implementation of this project is that circular migration should be seen as means for legal voluntary mobility and that therefore the duration of contracts under circular migration projects should be kept flexible. 197 Despite the broad understanding of circular migration as entailing longterm movement, the project failed to acknowledge, however, that the leakage to settlement and access to an EU long-term residence for some of the participants who opted to stay would not hinder circular migration in the long-term as they can continue to circulate back and forth between Georgia and Germany as EU longterm residents. Furthermore, limiting the contracts of participants or using other contractual return incentives 198 is not a guarantee that migrants will return and further engage in circular migration, and could raise human rights concerns.…”

“…288 This is also part of the lessons learned from the implementation of the circular migration pilot projects in Georgia. 289 The review of the latest available Mobility Partnership scoreboards and reports shows that some of the Eastern Partnership countries are investing targeted efforts in establishing workable recognition of qualifications systems in order to ensure mobility of skills and qualifications and prevent skill underutilisation. 290 The initiatives and projects identified vary from a country to country, depending on the stage of finalisation of important educational reforms, but are nonetheless considered to support the implementation of the benchmarks in this field.…”