Leila Kurki: Siirtolaisuus, kansalaisuus ja identiteetti Euroopassa

Leila Kurki puhui tutkijaseminaarissa Brysselissä 10.10.2011. Ohessa englanninkielinen puhe.

Leila Kurki
President of the Section for Employment, Social Affairs and Citizenship
European Economic and Social Committee EESC

Population Europe Event, Brussels, 10 October 2011

Population on the move: Migration, citizenship and identity in Europe

We are happy to host and support this important event on immigration. Committee has been very active on this topic and acted as a bridge between EU institutions and civil society organisations during the past decay.

EU institutions recognise our role as the representative of civil society organisations, for example, the Commission has asked us to co-organise and co-manage the European Integration Forum, and the Council has invited us regularly to Ministerial conferences on this topic.

Also the civil society organisers know our work well. I’m proud to inform that we have just received a prize from an organisation in Spain active in the field of integrating migrants.

Whilst it has been a great pleasure to cooperate with Population Europe in organising this specific event, this is not the first time we have worked together.  My colleagues and I have had already the opportunity to take part in and speak at some of your previous events and we intend to continue this cooperation.

Today’s topic is population on the move. The European Economic and Social Committee consider that, as part of a holistic approach needed to tackle today's demographic challenges, immigration has an important role to play.

The Committee has adopted a number of opinions encouraging the EU to develop a common immigration policy to enable people to migrate to Europe, by means of legal, humane and transparent procedures.

Common immigration policy is proving extremely difficult to formalise. Whilst cooperation on combating illegal immigration has been developed, little progress has been made with respect to legislation on the admission of new economic migrants, on conditions for entry and residence, and on immigrants' rights.

In the Committee's view, EU legislation should respect human rights and the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination.

It should be open and transparent, and take into account all categories of migrants without any discrimination between highly-skilled workers and the less skilled.

The legislation should be agreed with countries of origin, thus avoiding brain drain effects.

And as self-evident fact, it should be accompanied by active integration policies.

This last point leads me to expand on the specific theme of this workshop: The lives of migrants.

After having listened to the previous speaker, I immediately think that this totally reflects our approach on immigration policy, and especially integration.

To us, integration is a social process of mutual adaptation in the complex social relationships between migrants and the host society.

Integration develops slowly within the structures of society: the family, schools, districts and villages, the workplace, trade unions, and religious, cultural and sports institutions.

It is a process which takes place slowly in people's minds, and therefore needs a long-term approach. The role of civil society is fundamental.

If public authorities adopt this approach, they can these social processes to succeed via good governance at the various levels. However, they can also deepen the difficulties with the wrong policies or abrupt policy changes.

The Committee wishes to highlight the important role of local, regional and national authorities in the social integration processes. We have specifically looked at this topic in one of our opinions that you can find on our web site.

There's one more point I'd like to touch upon, namely family reunification.

In 2003, the EU adopted a directive setting out the conditions under which this can take place. The Committee has been quite critical of it for being far too restrictive.

We deeply believe, as has been backed up by several studies, that family has an important integrative role for migrants.

After a long delay, the Commission will now present a green paper next month on family reunification with a view to gathering stake-holders' points of view.

Unfortunately, the response from Member States is not very good and there are already a few who have made it clear that they intend to make conditions even more restrictive.

That is why the Committee will definitely make its voice heard but it will also be important for all relevant stake-holders to take part in this debate, to try to open it up more and make the directive more humane.

Integration and economic and social cohesion are two sides of the same coin.

Europe is experiencing a serious economic and social crisis, and falling behind in terms of cohesion when governments are cutting public funding also for integration.

In spite of this, or because of this, we consider that integration policies need to be strengthened in order to improve cohesion at both national and EU level. Only this way Europe is able to prevent some of the imbalances which are developing.

Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the values of freedom, democracy and the rule of law are obligations which apply not only to immigrants, but also to the authorities of the host societies.