Colloquy on Migration: challenges for local and regional authorities

Congress Hotel, Yerevan, Armenia, 30 June 2011

Opening Speech by Mr Emin YERITSYAN, Chair of the Congress Current Affairs Committee

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to the colloquy on the subject of Migration: challenges for local and regional authorities, organised by the Current Affairs Committee of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.

Migration remains a major policy issue for Europe today. On the one hand, the ageing European population requires a constant intake of migrants for economic reasons. On the other hand, our continent continues to attract people seeking refuge and people in a search of better opportunities in life offered by European democracy, freedom and economic prosperity. The European human rights protection system, unique in the world, makes our continent a safe haven for people running from tyranny and economic despair.

Migration today takes many forms, and migrants have many different statuses: legal and illegal, or regular and irregular; refugees, asylum seekers or economic migrants; migrants arriving in Europe through the process of the reunification of families. We can also distinguish migration from outside of Europe and migration within Europe. Finally, within Europe itself we can distinguish between countries of origin, transit countries and recipient, or host countries. Each of them would have to deal with a different set of problems linked to migration.

However, the overall result is that today, we practically do not have mono-ethnic communities any longer, at least at the urban level. Our local and regional communities have become multicultural, multilinguistic and multireligious, bringing to the fore the need for managing cultural diversity in European societies. 

Local and regional authorities are the first to deal with the arrival of migrants and are directly concerned, in the short term, with meeting their basic needs in terms of housing and health care, and in the long term, with their integration through education and employment, their relations with the host community and different community groups, and eventually with their participation in society.

More often than not, this means working to overcome xenophobic attitudes and non-acceptance of migrants, fighting prejudice and discrimination against them – also as far as their access to public services is concerned. It also means finding ways, despite their different legal status, of providing them with the same human rights protection as benefiting the rest of the community.

So, migrants, who are they and what are they? Are they an asset or a liability to the host community? Do they create a drain on welfare services, or do they contribute to local economy through their own entrepreneurship, and by filling in vacancies in the job market, thus prepping up the ageing population? And what is the best model for their integration?

A multicultural model have been tried, with some countries – notably Germany – now declaring it a failure. A new concept of interculturalism has been offered, with the Council of Europe and the European Commission launching, in 2008, the Intercultural Cities project, which has now entered into its second phase.

The issue of migration presents a multitude of challenges indeed, first and foremost for local and regional authorities. However, the legal framework for migration is a matter of national governments and parliaments, which also raises the question of responsibility-sharing among the different tiers of governance – national, regional and local, in terms of both competences to deal with specific migration aspects and funding of action on migration.

We are here today to examine these various questions, to hear presentations from guest speakers on some of these specific aspects as well as examples of good practices in addressing them.

In our discussions, we will be trying to answer some of the following questions:

-        What are the main problems faced by local and regional authorities in receiving, accommodating and integrating migrants?

-        Legal or irregular migrants, refugees, economic migrants or asylum-seekers – is there a difference for local and regional authorities with regard to problems they have to face?

-        What measures are needed to guarantee the access of migrants to social rights and public services at regional and local level?

-        What local and regional measures are needed to guarantee the protection of migrants’ rights in general?

-        What does it take to foster the integration of migrants into the rest of community?

-        How can responsibility-sharing be ensured between national, regional and local levels?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This colloquy is taking place in the context of a heightened attention to migration issues. The European Commission has recently issued a communication on migration, and the Council of Europe is launching a Framework for transversal work on migration. Migration is prominently featured in the European Union neighbourhood policy and in the elaboration of the Council of Europe neighbourhood policy. A recent report on “Living together in the 21^st century”, by the Group of Eminent Persons set up at the initiative of the Council of Europe Secretary General, pointed out the question of managing cultural diversity in European societies as a priority for future action. The report stressed specifically the crucial role of local and regional authorities in this process.

In addition, the events unfolding in North Africa and the Arab world have brought to the forefront in particular such questions as accommodation of migrants, including their rescue at sea, and responsibility-sharing both between different government levels within a country and between European countries. In April, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution and a recommendation on the subject, and the Committee of the Regions of the European Union did so in May. Just last week, the Parliamentary Assembly decided to launch an inquiry into the loss of life at sea, addressing the situation of migrants crossing the Mediterranean.

For its part, the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities has, over the years, adopted a wide range of recommendations on the subject of migration, a reference to which is included in the programme of this colloquy. The Congress came out in support of some very valuable initiatives, such as granting foreign residents – who are by and large migrants – a right to vote and be elected at local level, and setting up local and regional consultative councils of foreign residents and migrants. Today, more than 20 European countries give foreigners the right of a local vote, and a growing number of municipalities and regions are establishing representative structures for foreigners.  

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today’s colloquy is an opportunity to discuss what works and what does not bring an intended result in dealing with migrants at local and regional level. It is a moment to exchange opinions and experiences, and I hope for your active participation in discussions, which will feed into the future work of the Congress and its committees.