Zagreb, 13 October 2022 - The Chair of the Steering Committee on Anti-Discrimination, Diversity and Inclusion (CDADI), Triantafillos Loukarelis, intervened at the conference Integration of Persons Granted International Protection – Transfer and Good Practices at European and Global Level. He presented to the participants Recommendation CM/Rec(2022)10 on Multilevel Policies and Governance of Intercultural Integration that the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers recently adopted together with a Model Framework for its implementation.
During the presentation, the CDADI Chair stressed that it is the task of policy makers working on intercultural integration to realise the positive potential of diversity and make society and institutions in all fields and at all levels able to perceive and treat diversity as a resource. He furthermore underlined that intercultural integration is the outcome of a set of policies aiming
• to help society to benefit from the potential of diversity and manage its complexities,
• to take into account social, economic, and demographic situations alongside the overall goals of cohesion, stability and prosperity, and
• to create the conditions to ensure equal access to opportunities for migrants to integrate to the legal, social, economic and cultural contexts in their country of residence.
He also mapped out the four principles of intercultural integration, which are to (1) promote and ensure equality and opportunities for all members of society; (2) foster a common pluralistic sense of belonging through valuing diversity and building social trust and community cohesion; (3) promote meaningful interaction between people across their different socio-cultural backgrounds; and (4) facilitate their equal participation in and contribution to society.
The presentation finished with an outline of next steps taken at the Council of Europe to further the implementation of this Recommendation, which are the development of a capacity building program and several tools for migrant integration.
