Nicosia, 21/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 21 April in Nicosia, participants at the "Tomorrow Begins Today!" conference organised by the Council of European Municipalities and Regions(CCRE) insisted that "rapidly providing migrants with work" would be the best response to the integration challenge.
Hundreds of Mayors met up for three days in the Cypriot capital as part of this Congress. They are having to confront a multiplicity of problems and challenges created by the question of integrating migrants. Santo Caruso, spokesperson for the CCRE on asylum and immigration, is also a mayor of a small Italian village and said that the objective is to share experiences and proceed to an exchange of good practices because "better integration of migrants is a major challenge nowadays".
Many of the participants invited to speak confirmed that the effective integration of migrants could only be carried out by ensuring swift access to employment (see also another debate on this theme in EUROPE 11493). Agnese Papadia, from the European Commission's Directorate General Migration and Internal Affairs, said that the objective to be pursued was simple "the earlier integration begins, the better it is". Drawing on a number of different studies, she argued that this objective was even more important given that the migrants arriving in Europe "are very motivated but if they do nothing after a year, their motivation collapses".
The beneficiaries of rapid migrant integration can also be seen by those taking them in, argued Irena Guidikova, the head of Department and director of the "intercultural cities" programme at the Council of Europe. According to the latter, taking in migrants and providing them with work had "a positive economic impact on the host countries", where it is possible to consider migrants as "resources" because they have, "qualifications and skills the EU needs".
Ms Guidikova said they should guarantee that migrants are, "an integral part of the European community”. She added that it is important that the inhabitants and local authorities "do not leave migrants on the margins of society". To achieve this aim, it is necessary to "contain the fears of the locals with regard to the refugees and create bridges between them to develop trust". She said that this was all part of the integration process.
Lena Micko attended as the President of the SALAR group, which brings together the Swedish local and regional authorities and she confirmed the ideas put forward by Irena Guidikova. Sweden is a major destination of migrants and in 2015 accounted for 165,000 requests for asylum. Ms Micko said that "asylum seekers represented opportunities for all EU member states and each country must take care of refugees". She pointed out that they needed to put things into perspective "we are not being invaded by refugees, who only account for 0.19% of the European population, as opposed to the percentage they represent in countries such as the Lebanon".
Agnese Papadia highlighted the efficiency and importance of "novel practices and actions at local and regional levels for finding solutions to the problem of integration". All the solutions mentioned during this debate, "will be taken into account by the European Commission in the EU action plan". According to the latter, "integration must be based on a complementary approach: Europe must work hand-in-hand with the local and regional authorities. (Original version in French by Maëlle Didion)