Seminar Report: Best Practices and Challenges of Migration Around Europe

On the 7th of February, FORES together with European Liberal Forum, hosted this years Ralph Dahrendorf seminar, in Brussels. In the presence of Commissioner for home affairs Cecilia Malmström and an audience of around 60 people, a discussion on the best practices and challenges of migration around Europe was being held.

In her opening statement, Commissioner Malmström emphasized Europe’s need for an increased immigration, in order to cover the need of labour. If no comprehensive immigration policy is established, the EU will loose 93 million people of working age by 2050, she stated.This is according to Commisioner Malmström reflected in the “Europe 2020 strategy”, where the Commission has identified key areas for future European growth and competitiveness. Continuing on the need for labour, and the need for immigrants to integrate into the labour market, she highlighted the need for improved labour matching, to better take care of immigrants competences, strengthen efforts on integration, and improved dialogue with partner countries.

Commissioner Malmström also put emphasis on the human face of migration. Every man or woman who moves to Europe is above a human being, with aspirations and the ambition of a better life, she stated. Malmström therefore found the rise of intolerant, xenophobic and racists attitudes across Europe to be disturbing. The current public debate is according to the Commissioner fueled by misleading information about migration, and it is of great importance to use facts to give people a more realistic picture of the situation and need of migrants.

In their joint presentation, Martin Ådahl from FORES and Alasdair Murray, previously director at Centre Forum, made a brief summary of the findings in the report “Migration - Europe’s challenge”.

Ådahl stated that the importance of the civil society in order to achieve a successful integration was one of the most important conclusions from the report. The importance was clearly shown in the Swedish case of Gnosjö, where the small city fared significantly better than larger cities in finding employment for immigrants, much thanks to the strong connection between the authorities, civil society and the enterprises. The need for a strong civil society also showed in German Wiesbaden, where the civil society were instrumental in making the immigrants of the region being very successful in learning the German language.

Alasdair Murray in his part of the presentation highlighted that liberal values on migration were under threat even in countries such as UK, where mass-immigration has succeeded fairly well. But in the UK as well as Sweden, France and Italy migration in large lacks popular support. This in stark contrast to e.g Canada, where a pro-active policy of immigration has led to a large popular support for immigration.

In a concluding slide, Murray highlighted that less regulated labour market, focus on immediate employability, bigger role for civil society together with finding a narrative where the advantages of immigration is highlighted, is crucial in order to improve the migration policy in Europe.

Sergio Carrera, from the Centre for European Policy Studies CEPS, in his remarks began by stating that even though a significant part of the discussion surrounded the economic aspects of migration, one should also remember the humanitarian aspects of migration policy. He claimed that the EU, in particular after the enter into force of the Lisbon Treaty, had the opportunity to be in the forefront of a migration policy based on human rights and dignity, which is currently not always the case in the EU.

Elizabeth Collet, from the Migration Policy Institute, recognized the nervousness felt by many European citizens in regards to what the immigration would bring. She further highlighted that in general the public confidence in politicians’ ability to manage the migration issue is low. In order to handle this nervousness, Collet meant that Europe had to find a narrative that did not neglect the nervousness felt, but that also brought a positive sense of the need of immigration into the debate. She also stated that it is a wrong conclusion to draw that large immigration leads to populist movements. On the contrary, studies from UK had shown that citizens in general are more worried about mass-immigration in abstract terms than about immigration in their neighborhood.

During the Q&A session, Cecilia Malmström emphasized that even though the Commission could lay out the framework for migration policy, and also criticize states, the prime responsibility laid within the member states, and that integration is mainly achieved on a local level. The Commissioner continued by stating that in large the current system functions well, but in some cases states have failed and she mentioned Greece as one such example.

In her concluding remarks, Commissioner Malmström requested political leadership. She emphasized that the facts and figures are clear in explaining the necessity of a successful immigration, and that political leaders now need to be blunt in go public on the advantages of immigration.