Odilia Abreu
Short vita
Odilia Abreu joined the Madrid office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in September 2019. Previously she worked for the EU-LAC Foundation at Hamburg, as Project Manager for Communication and Public Relations. During the last 20 years, she has been working in the NGOs & Foundations sector and attained experience in institutional communication and in developing and implementing projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Europe, Middle East and North Africa. She speaks Portuguese, Spanish, English, French and German.
Her expertise areas are migration and female empowerment, in which she has had the opportunity to lead projects focused on promoting the debate, exchanging best practices, and formulating policy recommendations.
Ms Abreu is co-author of the book “O Regresso dos que nunca partiram – Memórias e Histórias da Emigração de São Roque do Faial” on the history of emigration in the Region of Madeira (Portugal).
Contributions
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Tambghrabit ("Solidarity"): A One Foundation Transformative Journey in Morocco
In the framework of the FNF One Foundation exchange program, I dedicated three weeks to gaining firsthand insight into the work carried out by the FNF Morocco office. Morocco is pivotal in the FNF Madrid office's Mediterranean Dialogue project. This exchange experience has been instrumental in fortifying the connections between both offices (FNF Madrid and Morocco offices) and advancing the shared goals of the project, which aims to establish and strengthen the dialogue between Germany, the European Union, and the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries.
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Lebanon on the EU Migration Roadmap
The journalistic report “Migration Policy Group: Lebanon on the EU Migration Roadmap” was produced by the journalist Mónica Uriel, in the framework of the Migration visiting program to Lebanon organized by the FNF Madrid office with the support of the FNF Lebanon and Syria office. The FNF Madrid Policy Group composed by liberal policy makers and experts from across Europe, North and West Africa, and the Middle East had the opportunity to get to know the reality of migration management in Lebanon first-hand.
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The Syrian-Lebanese Migration Puzzle: A new EU approach?
The debate about Syrian refugees, particularly in Lebanon, has shifted these past months. Bashar al-Ásad is back on the international scene, and the re-incorporation of Syria in the Arab League has shown that echoes of peace are now part of the future roadmap for the country. In this vein, some voices argued that it’s time for Syrian refugees to go back home, since stability seems to be a new direction for the country. Moreover, Lebanon, the main host country for Syrian refugees, has been facing one of the worst financial crises of its history.
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"Liberalism for All"
In Portugal, the center left Partido Socialista party has ruled for many years. But new forces are also changing the political landscape: founded only in 2017, the liberal party "Iniciativa Liberal" has managed to increase the number of its parliamentary seats from one to eight in only its second attempt. The party has taken up the cause of urgently needed economic reforms and de-bureaucratization. Rui Rocha, chairman of Iniciativa Liberal, talks in an interview about the key factors behind this rise.
