New IOM Director General in Berlin
Federal Chancellor Merkel has promised the new Director General of the International Organization for Migration ongoing close cooperation. The IOM works to reduce illegal migration.
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Chancellor Merkel with Director General Vitorino: The IOM consists of 166 member states.
Photo: Bundesregierung/Schacht
Before her meeting with Director General António Vitorino, Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel thanked the International Organization for Migration (IOM): "In this year alone, 12,500 refugees or migrants have been returned to their countries of origin. This is largely thanks to the International Organization for Migration."
Support for the IOM
Merkel announced that Germany will continue to strongly support the IOM in future. "Today we are going to talk about how Germany can continue to support the International Organization for Migration, which problems we see and where we can become even better, and also how we can cooperate in future," said the Chancellor.
The IOM is the most important international organisation of the United Nations which is devoted to the issue of migration. Its goal is to promote orderly, safe and humane migration for the benefit of all people. As such, it is firmly committed to the principle of protecting the well-being and the human rights of migrants.
The UN migrants’ organisation with headquarters in Geneva was founded in 1951, and now has nine regional offices, two liaison offices and nine country offices worldwide.
Reduce illegal migration
Among other things, the IOM has contributed to the "Compact" on regular migration, which is expected to be adopted in Morocco in December.
The Chancellor emphasised that this is another important task: "Reducing illegal migration and creating orderly, legal migration, which protects the lives of refugees, and at the same time puts countries of origin and destination in a manageable and orderly situation ‑ that is what we want to see."
The "Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration", initiated by the United Nations, pursues the goal of finding common, global solutions for the phenomenon of migration. Its primary goal is to create safe, orderly and legal migration. The Global Compact will not be legally binding. Rather, it formulates political goals and specific possible measures to achieve these goals. The Global Compact also explicitly follows the guiding principle of reducing illegal migration.