Migration Policy Institute


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ABOUT THE TRANSATLANTIC COUNCIL

The Transatlantic Council on Migration is a unique deliberative body that examines vital policy issues and informs migration policymaking processes across the Atlantic community.

The Council’s work is at the cutting edge of policy analysis and evaluation and is thus an essential tool of policymaking.

Launched in April 2008, the Council is an initiative of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, DC, convened by MPI President Demetrios Papademetriou. The Bertelsmann Stiftung is the Council’s policy partner.

The Council’s work is generously supported by the following foundations and governments: Carnegie Corporation of New York, Open Society Foundations, Bertelsmann Stiftung, the Barrow Cadbury Trust (UK Policy Partner), the Luso-American Development Foundation, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and the Governments of Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.

For more about the Council:

Mission

The Council has a dual mission:

  • To help inform the transatlantic immigration and integration agenda and promote better-informed policymaking by proactively identifying critical policy issues, analyzing them in light of the best research, and bringing them to public attention.
  • To serve as a resource for governments as they grapple with the challenges and opportunities associated with international migration.

Approach

The Council’s approach is evidence-based, progressive yet pragmatic, and ardently independent. The policy options placed before the Council for its deliberation are analyzed and vetted by some of the world’s best specialists.

The policy fields explored include:

  • Advancing social cohesion and social justice through more thoughtful citizenship and integration policies that focus equally on rights and responsibilities.
  • Enhancing economic growth and competitiveness through immigration.
  • Encouraging and facilitating greater mobility through better security.
  • Understanding better the relationship between states and emerging religious communities and fleshing out the rights and responsibilities of all parties.
  • Understanding better the complex links between migration and development.

Meetings

The Council convenes twice a year, in the spring and fall, and also holds extraordinary meetings as necessary.

All meetings are conducted under the Chatham House Rule.

History

The Council succeeds the Transatlantic Task Force on Immigration and Integration, launched in the spring of 2006 by MPI and the Bertelsmann Stiftung. A full description of the Task Force, its members, publications, and events is available at: www.migrationpolicy.org/transatlantic2006.

COUNCIL MEMBERS

Demetrios Papademetriou, Convener and President of the Migration Policy Institute

Giuliano Amato, former Prime Minister and Interior Minister of Italy

Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security and now senior of counsel at Covington & Burling LLP

The Rt Hon Charles Clarke, former Member of British Parliament and former Home Secretary

Ana Palacio, Senior Vice President, AREVA; former Foreign Minister of Spain

Trevor Phillips, Chairman of the UK Commission on Equality and Human Rights

Rita Süssmuth, Former President of the German Federal Parliament

Antonio Vitorino, Partner of Gonçalves Pereira, Castelo Branco & Associados; former European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs

Click here for more on the Council members

Council Press Contact:
Michelle Mittelstadt, Director of Communications, MPI

mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

+1 202-266-1910