Background:

In December 2023, the Finish Immigration Service enquired on the implementation of a customer service operating model for managing crisis or emergency situations. The query  explores the challenges in organizing customer service in connection with large-scale or sudden immigration, and  measures taken in other Member States. In addition, the Finish Immigration Office wants to know how the achievement of strategic goals is ensured during periods of significant immigration or other exceptional situations. Therefore, it requested EMN Member and Observer Countries to answer several questions related to the organization of immigration authorities’ customer service in a possible crisis or exceptional situation, such as the Ukraine crisis.

Respondents:

19 EMN Member Countries answered this question (including BE).

Findings:

A preliminary analysis of the results of the ad hoc query shows that:

• 14 EMN Member Countries (AT, BE, BG, CZ, ES, FI, FR, HU, Italy, LT, LV, NL, PL, SE) indicated that they organize customer service to deal with immigration and asylum issues in their immigration and/or asylum authorities. 5 Member Countries (HR CY, LU, SK, SI) reported they do not offer this service.
   
• Challenges raised by a majority of the Member Countries organizing this service, primarily include higher numbers of specific inquiries and applications, and consequently a lack of financial resources, trained staff and reception capacity to accommodate the increased demand. Also, communication barriers were mentioned, including communication between staff and (new) immigrant communities, the on-and offline provision of official information, and communication and coordination between the government agencies responsible for the customer services and other stakeholders (i.a. NGOs). Solutions proposed by the responding countries concern the expansion of (temporary) capacity and reception activities (opening hours, etc.), internal resources and staff reassignment, external staff recruitment, enhanced online (website, social media) and on-paper (flyer, handbook) information dissemination in other languages, creation of additional telephone line and e-mail address services and customer service points, and the establishment of coordination initiatives to bring together services from different government agencies and stakeholders. 
   
• In the majority of the responding countries, customer service personnel is supported through staff reinforcement, including additional internal deployment and external recruitment of staff (AT, BE, CY, CZ, HU, LV), training for (future) employees (CZ, PL) adaptation of work schedules (IT), model answers or response templates (FI, PL), and psychological or emotional support for customer service personnel (CZ, FI, ES). In FR, strategic measures and instructions are developed for regional governments concerning i.a. regional distribution of applicants and stock management.
   
• Member States have contingency plans and/or preparedness exercises in place, and draw lessons from previous crises (FI) and experiences from other countries (ES) while designing action plans.
   
• The achievement of strategic goals in crisis situations is ensured through flexibility in the resources allocation (CY, LT, PL, SE) and (mechanisms for) the development of new procedures (BG, LU, PL). Additionally, stakeholders gather to coordinate their actions and messages (BG, CZ, NL, LU). Public authorities reprioritize their workflows (SE), redefine strategic objectives (HU), and align their actions with their strategic values (FI).

For further details, please read the compilation of answers above.