Tuesday 15th June

The first part of the second day of the Meeting dealt with the situation of migrants and refugees in the Slovakian context. The first speaker, Daniel Milo (Slovakia), gave an overview of trends, developments and good practices concerning migration and xenophobia in Slovakia. After a historical introduction to the different migration waves to Slovakia he analysed the recent situation Slovakia is confronted with since being a new EU Member State and, thus, becoming more attractive for immigrants and asylum seekers. Daniel Milo discussed the forms and extent of xenophobia (especially found in official discourses) from an NGO perspective dealing with racial discrimination in Slovakia, while stressing that only 0,5% of the total population are foreign nationals. In the final part of his presentation, he presented some recommendations to challenge xenophobia.

Pierfrancesco Natta (Slovakia) discussed asylum issues in the Slovak Republic with regard to integration barriers and solutions. He presented a statistical overview of the development of applications by asylum seekers, showing a radical change since the country’s EU accession. The increase of applications for asylum from persons from different countries of origin, the organisation of reception and also of return to the home country, the new EU regulations on fingerprinting migrants in their countries of entry to the EU, the administration of the Dublin Convention against the background of Slovakia’s becoming a country through which many asylum seekers firstly enter the EU, etc., confront the Slovak authorities with a wide range of new problems.

The presentation by Nivi Dayan (Israel) on the empowerment of immigrant communities as regards successful integration and its role in combating discrimination and hostility focused on Russian immigrants to Israel and the contribution of the Russian communities to the integration of newcomers. She stressed that Russian immigrants are often highly-educated professionals, but their skills are only partly utilized by the host society. Nivi Dayan elaborated six indicators of integration including relations with the home country, the use of Russian language, education, informal networks etc. She further discussed some patterns of integration of immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) to Israel and pointed to the growing recognition of their contribution to Israeli society.

The last presentation was given by Einar Vetvik (Norway) who concentrated on recent developments in Norway concerning the integration of migrants and social cohesion. Introducing the Scandinavian approach to integration, he first discussed the special case of Norway as an “old” poor migrant-exporting country and as a “new” rich (oil) country of immigration. According to Einar Vetvik, there are two key institutions for integration: the school system and the labour market. In comparison with other European countries migrants find work in Norway more easily, yet their unemployment rate still remains higher compared to Norwegian citizens. With regard to the school system, the teaching of religion in schools is a crucial point. Norway has found a unique but still controversial solution of teaching “Christianity and religions” (including Hinduism, Islam) which is compulsory for all pupils (e.g. Lutherians have to learn about Islam, Hinduism, etc. and vice versa). This again raised the question of assimilation, values and human rights. Einar Vetvik finally argued for an open discussion of all differences.