Cities and Regions for Integration

Integration of migrants and refugees is a priority for the European Committee of the Regions.
The #Regions4Integration Blog will bring you successful initiatives by towns, cities and regions across EU. 
How do integration policies work in the everyday life of a smaller or a bigger town?
Is it through sport? Work placements? Language training?
✅ Get the details about the initiative: https://cor.europa.eu/integration.go
✅ Sign up to the initiative by filling in this questionnaire: https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/IntegrationInitiative
✅ Share your integration story with us using #Regions4Integration or by sending it to socialmedia@cor.europa.eu
This blog is run by the European Committee of the Regions. 
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09/12/2019 07:46 PM

Commissioner Johansson emphasises need to share good practice on integration 

The new European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, praised cities, towns and villages across the European Union for their work on integrating refugees and migrants on 3 December. The President of the European Committee of the Regions, Karl-Heinz Lambertz, welcomed the support, saying that migration in Europe needed "a fairer, more pragmatic and inclusive approach that supports regions and cities".

Commissioner Johansson was speaking on her second working day in her post at a gathering of around 400 local and regional politicians, 'Go Local: Supporting regions, cities and rural areas in migrants' integration'. The conference, co-organised by the European Committee of the Regions and European Commission, aims to promote a strong element of local and regional social investment in the EU's approach to migration. The European Committee of the Regions has been calling, in particular, for support for towns and villages, which, across the EU, are home to about one-third of refugees and immigrants.

Commissioner Johansson stated that: "As European Commissioner, I want to emphasise that one of our long-term goals is building a cohesive society, where each member feels respected and safe. That is why good integration will be one of my priorities. Integration is based on community and communities are built from the bottom up. That is why Go Local is such an important initiative and event." Commissioner Johansson also announced the award of new Emergency Assistance measures to Italy and Spain in support of their efforts to integrate recently arrived people.

The European Commission has called for a tripling in the principal fund through which integration work is supported – currently named the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund – from €3.1 billion in 2014-20 to €10.4 billion. The EU intends to channel most long-term funding for social inclusion through the future European Social Fund Plus (ESF+).Organisation of the conference was led by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Home Affairs and the European Committee of the Regions, whose President, Karl-Heinz Lambertz (BE/PES), in April 2019 launched the Cities and Regions for Integration initiative together with the then EU Commissioner Dimitrios Avramopoulos.

President Lambertz said, "We need to end scaremongering, do away with divisive, populist rhetoric and work with pragmatism, fairness and solidarity. Over the past decade, cities and towns across Europe have welcomed and supported refugees during a time of austerity. The Integration Initiative continues to grow, showing that villages, towns, cities and regions are helping integrate newcomers every day, and, in the process, creating inclusive communities. The Commissioner's presence today, to engage with regions and cities so early on in her tenure, demonstrates that Europe is not only listening, but willing to act locally".

Other speakers included Virginio Merola (IT/PES), mayor of Bologna and member of the European Committee of the Regions, Annika Annerby Jansson, President of the Skåne region in Sweden; Rutger Groot Wassink, Deputy Mayor of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, responsible for social affairs, democratisation, and diversity; and Oriol Amorós, secretary for equality, migration and citizenship in the Catalan government in Spain.

The conference included workshops on many of the areas of life in which local and regional governments are typically particularly important – housing, health, education, youth work, and sport – as well as areas where the European Commission offers its expertise to cities and regions, such as data, local strategies, and innovative financial instruments.

The EU currently offers support for integration projects through the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, the European Social Fund, the European Fund for Regional Development, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, and Erasmus+.

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09/12/2019 07:13 PM

Integration through the lens

 

On her second working day as the new European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson told an audience of about 400 local regional politicians and officials that integration should receive more money from 2021 and be mainstreamed across the work of many Commission directorates. The conference – Go Local: Supporting Regions, Cities and Rural Migrants' Integration – was co-organised by the European Committee of the Regions and the European Commission's DG Home, with other departments in the European Commission – responsible for health, culture, agriculture, regional policy, and agriculture – and the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency organising parallel sessions. 

The conference was accompanied by a small exhibition designed to showcase integration initiatives taken by local and regional authorities. Attendees then voted for their favourite story. The winner of the 'Integration through Your Lens' exhibition was a photo of a refugee – Bushrah Alkhalaf – with her family, after she won a race at Cork City Sports in May. Bushrah and her family were resettled from Syria in January 2019. Bushrah started school in Ireland soon after and through school got involved in athletics. The HSE Cork Kerry Refugee Resettlement team have worked closely with Bushrah and her family, supporting them to adjust to their new neighbourhood and to get involved in local community activities. The photo is below.

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05/11/2019 06:28 PM

Refugees finding work on Germany's stretched labour market

Germany's Die Welt carried an article on 3 November that highlighted both Germany's growing labour shortage and progress on integrating refugees and migrants. Bernd Fitzenberger, the head of the Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (Institute for Labour Market Studies), is quoted as saying that Germany will need an annual inflow of 400,000 migrant workers to keep its working population stable and to tackle a growing skills shortage. Fitzenberger also says that integration of refugees is advancing at good speed, citing figures collected by his institute earlier this year that 38% of refugees who have arrived since 2015 are now employed. He noted that 48% of these jobs are in specialised areas, and "5% even work as specialists and experts".

Separately, an article published on the same day by the Süddeutsche Zeitung reports that the German Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) expects over 145,000 new asylum requests in 2019. This is down from 160,000 last year. At present, 35% to 38% of claimants are granted refugee status.

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