On 21 September 2022, in Skopje, North Macedonia, the Council of Europe and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) organised a joint roundtable on access to social and economic rights and integration related services for refugees and stateless persons.

Participants discussed measures aimed at preventing and reducing statelessness, as well as the implementation of international and Council of Europe instruments, in particular the European Convention on Human Rights, the European Social Charter and relevant standards in the field of nationality to uphold the rights of asylum seekers, refugees and stateless persons. The round table also explored new avenues for enhancing the protection of asylum seekers, refugees and stateless persons and for contributing to the development of good practices in North Macedonia in these areas.

The round table was also an occasion to highlight the European Social Charter, its procedures and its guarantee of the social rights of refugees and stateless, in particular as this guarantee emerges from the monitoring work of the European Committee of Social Rights. The roundtable also heard presentations of North Macedonian law and practice in this respect and discussed their compliance with the Charter.

This roundtable was organised in the framework of the Council of Europe co-operation with the UNHCR on priority actions in the field of asylum and migration, as set out in Council of Europe’s Action Plan on Protecting Vulnerable Persons in the Context of Migration and Asylum in Europe (2021-2025). It constitutes also a follow up to the Council of Europe’s pledges submitted on occasion of the High-Level Segment on Statelessness held in Geneva in October 2019 and in the framework of UNHCR’s  #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness.