Malaga, chosen by the European Commission to draw up solutions that integrate highly qualified refugees and migrants into the European market

Experts from the European Commission, NGOs, institutions and companies met at 'Migrant and Refugee Solutions', an event that was held the 25th of June at the MUPAM, organised by BIC Euronova and the City of Málaga with the collaboration of Christar International.

BIC Euronova (European Business and Innovation Center of Malaga) and the City Council of Malaga, with the collaboration of Christar International, managed to bring to Málaga one of the events that are part of the European Commission's social economy initiative, ESER (European Social Economy Regions); which took place at the Municipal Heritage Museum (MUPAM) under the title 'Migrant and Refugee solutions'.

Solutions to integrate highly qualified refugees and migrants in the European market were being mapped with the knowledge of experts from the European Commission, representatives of NGOs, institutions, government agencies and companies.

The event was attended by Ruth Sarabia García, Advisor for Citizen Participation, Migration, Foreign Action, Development Cooperation, Transparency and Good Governance, who expressed:  'The commitment of the City of Malaga in supporting these initiatives for seeking solutions that integrate refugees and migrants in the European market. Trying at the same time to make the citizens seeing it as an opportunity and not as a problem'.

In addition, Brent McHugh, CEO of Christar International and Álvaro Simón de Blas, General manager of BIC Euronova - European Center for Business and Innovation of Málaga- as well as a representative of the European Commission, Mr. Dennis Van Gessel, together with other leading figures in the field of social innovation, set the agenda of the event.

After the success from last year, the European Commission has launched again the initiative in more than 55 cities and 20 countries in the EU. The aim of the initiative is to foster visibility and recognition of the impact of social economy, and like this understand better the real needs in the EU Members States to create a community of NGOs, third parties, entrepreneurs and politicians cooperating and creating working groups to identify challenges and to propose the best solutions to social challenges. Furthermore, this gives the possibility of having a unique voice to be heard at the European level.

Once all those events will come to an end, in October 2019 all the cities will be invited to Brussels, during the 'European Week of Regions and Cities', where there will be an exchange of ideas and best practices about the opportunities and the participants will be looking for new collaborations.