1. THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics of International Migration Nicolas Perrin perrin@sped.ucl.ac.be Michel Poulain poulain@sped.ucl.ac.be GéDAP/UCL

2. Context of the project EU is facing an urgent need for better statistics on migration and asylum to support the development of a common EU migration policy International migration statistics are among the less reliable statistics A forthcoming EU regulation on international migration and asylum statistics will come into force => Within the 6th Framework Programme for Research, THESIM has been selected in order to: Support the implementation of the regulation Help countries to fulfill their tasks

3. Organisation of the THESIM consortium Austria (ICMPD) Belgium (UCL), coordinator Estonia (EKDK) France (INED) Italy (ICSTAT) Netherlands (NIDI) Poland (CEFMR)

4. THESIM objectives Compare definitions and concepts related to international migration Analyse available data in order to see What the data reveals Where are the main problems in terms of reliability and comparability Integrate data on asylum with data on flows and stocks Describe and analyse efforts done on bilateral and international levels Propose pratical recommendations in order to improve the situation

5. Expected outputs and deliverables An update of the statistical documentation will be available soon (January) for each country concerning: Legal migrations Immigrations Emigrations Stocks of foreign populations Residence permits Acquisitions of citizenship Illegal migration (partially / CIREFI data) Thematic reports Comparability of CIREFI data Links between legal and illegal migrations Comparisons of international database…