Europäische Flüchtlingsintegration als gemeinsame kommunale Entwicklung

Im Folgenden stellen wir ein Dokument in deutscher und englischer Fassung bereit, dass sich mit den Chancen eines positiven Anreizsystems für Kommunen zur Aufnahme von Flüchtlingen auseinandersetzt.

Kurzfassung/Abstract

The European Union desperately needs a realistic and human rights oriented border and migration policy. The present stage brings the EU in a dangerous dependency of the Turkish President Erdogan, presumes African countries as safe which are not clearly safe und supposes Northern African countries as possible migration-policy partners which are neither coherent states, nor safe nor observing minimal human rights standards.

The general political objectives to help overcoming the causes for migration, to support countries close to migration origins in hosting refugees and to realize the Europeanisation of the border regime are necessary but insufficient steps. The idea to “outsource” the migration control into countries outside the EU is not realistic in the long run. It also undermines the fundamental values of the EU. The present policy which implicitly and inevitably leads to a “Fortress” Europe scenario is already undermining our open societies and will create new internal borders.

By showing the possibilities to integrate refugees, cities and municipalities can help their national governments to fulfill their duties. This will have a positive impact on their mutual cooperation and communication.

A European funding tool for integrating refugees which cities and municipalities could apply for, would realize three objectives at once:

1. Find a humanitarian solution for the settlement of refugees in Europe,
2. Revive a European commitment by bottom-up citizen participation, and
3. Start a decentralized sustainable growth initiative at local level to overcome unemployment.

The obstacles to overcome are:

• To convince the national governments that this strategy is in their interest helping them to fulfill their legal and moral duties and to revive their economy;
• To find simple and uncomplicated ways for financing the integration costs for cities and municipalities. Their own contribution could be financed for example by a cheap EIB credit;
• To find ways to match the interests of the refugees and of the possibly welcoming municipalities so that the refugees would go there and stay.

The application of the municipalities should be as easy as possible but of course include minimal standards:

• In order to reach a broad support within the cities the application should be prepared by a multi-stakeholder governance including politics, business and organized civil society;
• it should include an integration strategy for the whole municipality;
• it should include an anti-corruption strategy;
• it should include a macro-economic idea for creating jobs and sustainable growth

In a longer perspective, the European Council should give the permission to create a trust fund attached to the EIB with a specific governance to control and at the same time make it easier to cities to apply for the financing of refugees and of necessary infrastructure.

In a shorter perspective, a pilot project could be launched by a group of European cities applying to integrate refugees according to this concept and therefore, asking for financing. This could be possibly managed within the frame of a “Union Action” as an extraordinary measure. The advantage would be to test the viability of this strategy and to start a visible European “revival” which would empower the citizens and strengthen their identification with the European Union by participation and common projects.

For more information and details please read the following full-paper or contact us via info@restart-europe-now.eu

European Refugee Policy (english)
Konzept für Richtlinien zur europäischen Flüchtlingspolitik (deutsch)