Monday 14th June

August Gächter (Austria) opened the Expert Meeting with a presentation on the concept of social cohesion, while raising the question how this concept may help in fostering integration and/or combating xenophobia. August Gächter introduced three different definitions of integration including “process-oriented” definitions of integration as well as different definitions of the concept of social cohesion from a European perspective (e.g. Eurocities, Council of Europe’s definition of well-being). The presentation concentrated on two main questions:
   Can social integration/cohesion influence xenophobia, i.e. does a “high” degree of social integration/cohesion reduce the level of xenophobia observed in a particular society?
   Who is in need of better integration: immigrants or members of the host society that display xenophobic attitudes?

Dilek Çinar (Austria) gave the next presentation on the policy of the European Union towards integration and xenophobia. She started her presentation by pointing to more or less common trends in national integration policies such as a movement back from multiculturalism towards assimilation including a new emphasis on socio-economic integration, compulsory integration programmes, language proficiency, commitment to fundamental values etc. But there are still considerable differences between national integration policies of the “old” EU member states. Accordingly, the picture is characterized by a lack of a common definition of integration as well as a lack of related indicators and instruments to measure integration. The overview given in this presentation concentrated on the development of the legal framework since the Amsterdam Treaty to facilitate the integration of immigrants and to combat ethnic/”racial” discrimination. Finally, the presentation reminded us of the fact that much of what is being discussed today has been on the political agenda since the mid-1970s, when the Community started the first Action Programme “in favour of migrant workers and their families”.

An example of the practical implementation of EU Community Action Programmes to combat discrimination and racism on the labour market has been discussed by Theodora Manolakos (Austria) who focused on European models of anti-discrimination policies in companies. After a short description of the situation of migrants and ethnic minorities in the labour market that still face considerable disadvantages, Theodora Manolakos introduced us to the EQUAL Community Initiative, which deals with racism and xenophobia in the labour market. Starting with six categories of anti-discrimination measures elaborated by the ILO, her presentation focused on private company initiatives such as specific trainings and measures to challenge racist attitudes, equal opportunities policies and diversity management. Finally, the presentation described some specific company-related anti-discrimination activities and models of good practice.

Rita Sever (Israel) in her presentation discussed the importance of Diversity Management Strategies (DMS) and their implications for social cohesion and immigrants’ integration. Starting from a common referral to immigrants as a threat to social cohesion, she argued that this perception entails the “waste of immigrants’ human resources”. Holding against this view, she introduced a range of definitions of “culturally diverse” or “multicultural societies” and discussed their different meanings (e.g. descriptive, ideological, structural/political). She criticized that strategies to manage cultural diversity are usually based on mono-cultural concepts and gave examples of alternative strategies with an emphasis on a more “interactive” concept not based on separate enclaves. With regard to the “human capital” of immigrants Rita Sever presented a survey on how differently vocational training agencies treat immigrants acting on the basis of latent assumptions about different immigrant groups (from Western countries or from so-called Third World Countries), while the survey results show a surprising variety of skills among all immigrants.

Walter Schmid’s (Switzerland) presentation of the obstacles to the integration of migrants in Europe, with an emphasis on the Swiss experience, reinforced the socio-economic perspective, while arguing that the anti-discrimination discourse allows to look away from questions of social justice. With regard to migration and integration issues, he identified three approaches: the nation-state approach, the economic approach and the transnational approach. Only recently the Swiss Government decided on an integration programme (without having found a precise definition of “integration) that defines two key factors of integration: access (to goods, services, jobs, etc.) and recognition (of e.g. qualifications, abilities). However, access alone will not lead to integration, e.g. women may have access (to the labour market) but no recognition. The same goes with recognition, e.g. an African drummer may be highly recognized because of his ability but has no access to the labour market). The Swiss Integration Programme focuses especially on language training, valuing migrant groups by financing small projects (grass-roots approach), promoting migrants’ associations and building up competence centres.

Patricia Keeding (Germany) in her presentation discussed barriers to integration of immigrants in Germany concentrating on the debate about the new immigration law from 1998 through 2004. Introducing her presentation with an overview about the history of integration in Germany, she highlighted some aspects of the political discourses with regard to the German integration policy since the introduction of ius soli-provision into German Citizenship Law in January 2000. As for her own work at IOM, she discussed a pilot project directed by herself which focuses on the labour market integration of often highly-skilled Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union. Patricia Keeding concluded that there is still an official denial of being an immigration country and, hence, a lack of a coordinated integration strategy including labour market participation of immigrants.