The Regional Consultative Council for Immigration Affairs, inactive for several years, took place on Wednesday for the second time with the current Government of the Azores, which has recovered the entity intended to reflect and support the executive.

“This is the second meeting that has already taken place this year and that we intend to maintain under the terms of the regulation. We want to include in the reflection the revision of the composition and increase representation”, underlined the President of the Government of the Azores, José Manuel Bolieiro.

The President was speaking in Velas, on São Jorge, at the end of the meeting of the Regional Consultative Council for Immigration Affairs, which took place on Wednesday afternoon.

The President of the Government recalled that the Azores are home to four thousand immigrants of 95 nationalities.

“For many years we were a land and a people of emigrants, but now we are also islands of immigrants. Mind that many other foreigners live here, who fortunately have already acquired Portuguese nationality”, he continued.

“Our objective is maximum integration, both from a cultural point of view, but also from a professional and social point of view”, the President also stated.

The Regional Consultative Council for Immigration Affairs is composed, among others, of the President of the Government, the Regional Directors for the Communities, Education and Social Solidarity, AIPA – Association of Immigrants in the Azores, CRESAÇOR – Regional Cooperative for Solidarity Economy, AMRAA – Association of Municipalities of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, and SEF – Foreigners and Border Service.