Back Intercultural Cities presented at the Seminar on “Migration and inclusion in the European Union”

Intercultural Cities presented at the Seminar on “Migration and inclusion in the European Union”

A seminar to analyse migration and inclusion policies in the European Union with a focus on regional and municipal experiences took place in Valencia last 25-26 February. The seminar was organised by the Department of Equality and Inclusive Policies of the Valencia regional government, in collaboration with Interact, the Valencia Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, the University of Valencia and Europe Direct Comunitat Valenciana.

Participants were academic experts, political leaders from different levels of government, project officers of European programmes, representatives of European regions and cities, and representatives of civil society.

On that occasion, the intercultural inclusion approach promoted by the Council of Europe Intercultural Cities (ICC) programme was presented, including some practical examples of city policies, and insights on the methodological approach used by the ICC programme, its tools and guidance for local authorities. Participants also got a more detailed presentation of the RECI – the Spanish Network of Intercultural Cities – as well as of the ICC anti-rumour strategy, now implemented by a constantly growing number of cities in Spain and internationally based on both the Council of Europe Handbook, and the support of Anti-rumours Global.

The conclusions of the seminar, provided by the General Director of relations with the EU of the Valencia regional Government pointed out the following ideas:

The need to reconnect human dignity and the respect of people’s fundamental and basic rights, with policies aimed at a positive management of migratory movements through effective inclusion policies. Migration policies must be approached from a global perspective, taking into account multiple economic, social, legal, cultural or political factors, in the full respect of fundamental and human rights, as well as of the international obligations undertaken by European countries.

She also stressed that human dignity and human rights shall not be relegated to a second plan and be overlooked because of internal security needs. The price to pay for migratory policies that are not conducive to respect for the inalienable rights of human beings risk to be a social catastrophe that could become a risk for our solid democracies.

For all the above, one of the measures that should be demanded is the decoupling of immigration and asylum policies from security and interior issues at European level, so to focus them on more social or citizen-related areas. On the contrary, if the parallelism between immigration and security (or lack of) is maintained, the identification of immigration with crime, delinquency, and problems will continue to be the dominant theme of populist discourses that are lately repeated at all political levels and that only encourage xenophobia and racism.

The seminar further concluded that the fight against hate speech shall be seriously address to counter the rise of extreme political parties that are attracting more and more young people, professionals, average workers, men and women alike, who advocate exclusion, discrimination and rejection of the “other”, sheltering themselves in false idols and signs of identity that remind of the darkest times in Europe. Militant democracy, education in human rights, training in democratic values must be the true pillars of the struggle against the ignominy of fascism that is knocking at the door of our todays democracies.

The regions and cities are key actors in relation to migration policies; despite not having competences in matters of immigration, the regions and municipalities are responsible for integration, social assistance, health and education. Therefore, their role in shaping and implementing migration and asylum policies should be central and key.

Migration policies, the management of people flows, their reception and integration cannot be successful without the backs of the administrations closest to people, regions and municipalities. The policies on people should be elaborated taking them into account, not from offices far from the social reality.

For all these reasons, the regions represented at the Seminar requested to have a preponderant role in the elaboration of these policies.

Valencia, Spain 25-26 February 2019
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