On 14 and 15 April 2026, the MPF team will bring together senior policymakers, practitioners and partners in Brussels to celebrate the first ten years of the MPF with the event “Enabling Partnerships - A decade of the Migration Partnership Facility".
Bilateral Labour Arrangements, especially flexible, non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs), have been on the uptake in the 2020s as EU Member States turn to them to plug labour shortages, advance migration diplomacy, and build safer, skills-driven mobility schemes with partner countries. This analytical piece by Bianca Varesio and Orlane Janvier analyses the recent surge of such agreements between the EU and partner countries.
The fourth EU Labour Mobility Practitioners’ Network (LMPN) Conference, held in Brussels on 18–19 November, brought together policymakers, practitioners and international partners to explore how labour migration can be made smoother, more effective and sustainable. Under the theme “From Lessons to Levers: Driving the next phase of labour migration”, discussions focused on mechanisms that influence outcomes—whether through innovation, operational improvements or strategic partnerships.
The closing event for the SkillNet project brought a range of Italian and Pakistani actors together to celebrate the project’s successes in Rome on 25 September 2025.
In the Southern Italian region of Apulia, local companies in the agri-food sector wish to innovate but struggle to recruit specialised technicians due to emigration and an aging workforce. A selection of these companies will participate in a circular labour mobility scheme with Egypt focused on enhancing the skills of young Egyptian workers and students in the fields of green economy, digitalisation and agriculture.
Displaced Ukrainians in Moldova face many barriers when trying to access essential services in the towns where they live, exacerbating existing vulnerabilities. In turn, local and national authorities lack sufficient data on needs and challenges that migrants have when accessing social services and to be able to make informed decisions.
Since December 2024, the project funded through the MPF, Cities and Regions for All (CR4A): Full Integration of Refugees and Migrants in Urban and Rural Environments, and implemented by People in Need International and Prague 5 Municipal District, wants to help overcome these challenges.
The closing ceremony of the “Strengthening Migrant Integration through cooperation between Portugal and Cabo Verde” (Coop4Int) project took place on July 24, 2025, in the city of Praia, Cape Verde. Coop4Int was funded by the European Union through the MPF since December 2021 and sought to enhance the inclusion of migrants in line with the National Immigration Strategy and 2018-2021 Action Plan for Immigration and Social Integration of Cabo Verde.
SUSTAIN Europe connects Nigerian STEM talent with jobs in Germany and Ireland through regular migration, tailored training, and strong employer partnerships.
Innovative skills partnerships are laying a solid foundation for legal migration and workforce development between Ghana, Senegal, and Germany.
