Under the international plan, these are SEF’s attributions:
a) To ensure, by determination of the government, the representation of the Portuguese State at European Union level in the Strategic committee on Immigration, Frontiers and Asylum and at the High-Level Working Group on Asylum and Migration, at the Budapest Group and other international organizations, as well as to participate in Police Cooperation Working Parties involving matters related to SEF’s attributions;
b) To assure, by determination of the government, the representation of the Portuguese State in developing the Schengen acquis under the European Union;
SEF participates in Working Groups, Committees and Agencies of the European Union such as EU-LISA – European Agency for the Operational Management of Large-Scale IT Systems in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice.
SEF has representation, since the beginning of this Agency, in the three advisory groups of the European Agency for the Operational Management of Large-Scale IT Systems, namely in SIS II, EURODAC and VIS (the last one together with MNE), as an alternate member of the Management Board.
Concerning the external dimension of the immigration and asylum policy, SEF follows the Budapest Process and the Prague Process, as well as the Rabat Process – Euro-African Dialogue on Migration and Development. Portugal, through SEF, has reinstated in 2014 the Rabat Steering Committee, having hosted a meeting in Portugal in April 2015.
SEF follows further the Eastern Partnership/Migration and Asylum Panel and the Khartoum Process (EU-Horn of Africa Migration Route).
In terms of Multilateral Organizations, SEF has representation in the Steering Group of ICMPD (International Centre for Development of Migration Policy). This international organization assumes and/or gives continuity to Secretariat of several migratory processes/dialogues and instruments of Global Approach to Migration, while PT (SEF) is involved in the Budapest Process (Silk Route Area), Prague Process, Rabat Process, EuroMed Migrations III, Migration EU Expertise Programme (MIEUX) and Support to EU-Africa Dialogue Migration and Mobility (MMD), Mobility Partnerships (MP), with more and more relevance within the European Institutions.
In November 2013, SEF has celebrated with the ICMPD a Protocol on bilateral cooperation, by the 20th anniversary of the organization, aiming for the reinforcement of the already existing cooperation between the two Parties and widening the scope of that cooperation in a more concrete and oriented way.
Diagram on International Relations and Cooperation (PT) (PDF)
Immigration Liaison Officers