Commissioner says Europe's current approach of focusing on migration control risks stalling or even undermining integration efforts
Nils Muižnieks, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, has called on European countries to prioritise migrant integration.
In an issue paper published today (and available here) the Commissioner says Europe's current approach of focusing on migration control as a top priority risks stalling or even undermining integration efforts.
The paper provides guidance to governments and parliaments to design and implement successful integration policies. In particular, it highlights the European standards which govern this field and sets forth a number of concrete recommendations to ease migrants' integration, with a focus on family reunification, residence rights, language and integration courses, access to the labour market and quality education, effective protection from discrimination and political participation.
The paper makes the following recommendations aimed at turning European standards into concrete outcomes for migrant integration:
- Spouses and children of migrants should be able to apply rapidly and be reunited with their sponsor.
- Nearly all foreign citizens with five years or more of legal residence should have secured an EU or national long-term/permanent residence permit.
- Countries cannot demand linguistic and civic integration without supporting enough free courses and materials for all migrants to learn and succeed.
- Migrants and non-migrants with the same socio-economic background should be just as likely to be in employment, education and training in a society that delivers on its promises of equal opportunities.
- Migrant children should be in mainstream schools and classes and their enrolment rates and educational attainment should be similar to that of non-migrant children.
- All people who experience discrimination should know and use their rights to challenge discrimination. Public authorities have a duty to promote equality and non-discrimination throughout their work.
- Non-citizens should participate in political and civic life in some way and be enfranchised to vote at local and regional level after a maximum of five years of legal residence. Nearly all first-generation migrants should be naturalised as full citizens after a maximum of 10 years in the country, while their children should be entitled to become citizens by virtue of being educated or born in the country.
"After being consumed by short-term imperatives, such as reception and the processing of asylum claims, European governments have to focus now on the long-term goal of promoting the successful integration of migrants … Migrants are not a threat, but an opportunity. European countries should face up to the challenge of successful integration and see it as a long-term investment in their stable and secure future", Muižnieks said.