Grusswort von Katrin Hatzinger zur Podiumsdiskussion "Integrating Integration"

Ladies and gentlemen,
dear colleagues,

I would like to warmly welcome you to our side event to the European Week of Regions and Cities “Integrating integration – How to shift the integration of migrants from AMIF to ESF+” in the premises of the Protestant Church in Germany. Thank you very much for your interest.

In recent years, especially the integration of refugees has been an important field of work for us. Since the start of the arrivals in 2015, the Protestant Church in Germany and its welfare organisation, Diakonie Deutschland, have played a significant role in Germany´s reaction to this quite unique situation. It seems to be almost impossible to count the huge numbers of volunteers and projects, both large ones and local small-scale projects, that have been provided. Some of these projects received funding from the European Union through the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund. One of these projects, Sprachräume, will be presented to you today.

In May and June this year, the European Commission has presented their regulation proposals for the new fonds. According to these proposals, the long-term integration of refugees and third-country nationals will be transferred from what is now the AMIF into ESF+, whereas short-term integration measures, such as language courses, civic orientation courses and introductions to the host society, shall remain within the future AMF.

Let me first point out that we welcome this proposal in general. It will effectively mean that the integration of third-country nationals will no longer be considered solely as a matter of home affairs, but increasingly also one of social policy. We also welcome the fact that the challenges which come along with the integration of third-country nationals are placed within a broader societal context. Providing adequate labour market integration, effective health care, or high-quality education, for instance, are not only limited to the target group, but bear importance to society as a whole. During the past years, however, it has become clear that the inflow of refugees and migrants has provided a catalyst for a sense of dissatisfaction among some parts of the population in a number of Member States. People who felt neglected by national social policy before, often see measures taken to integrate refugees with a sense of envy as they feel they are competing for social support. For us, it is essential to make sure that different groups of people in need are not played off against each other when it comes to funding, be it at the EU level, or at local, regional or national level.

However, with the objective of long-term integration of refugees and third-country nationals being transferred into the ESF+, we are worried about the fact that the overall budget of the ESF+ is actually set to decrease in comparison to the total of the current funds which will be merged under the new ESF+ , that is the ESF, the Employment and Social Innovation programme (EaSI), the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD), and the Health Programme. At the same time, the total funding for the AMF will increase significantly. When it comes to the support for the most vulnerable groups, it needs to be ensured that transferring the long-term integration of refugees and third-country nationals will not lead to a situation where support for refugee integration and support for other groups of the population, such as the local long-term unemployed, will stand in competition to one another. Against this background, we support the suggestion to also take factors such as the number of refugees and the unemployment rate in each region into account when calculating the distribution of ESF+ and European Regional Development Fund money to each Member State.

As questions remain about the precise division between long- and short-term measures for integration, the compatibility of the ESF+ and the AMF strands of integration become even more important and need to be strengthened in our view. The funds should be designed in a way that the valuable work done so far under the current AMIF or AMF projects can be continued and built upon in ESF+-funded long-term integration projects.

Of course, the transfer of integration measures from AMIF to ESF+ will also have practical implications for the beneficiary organisations. I am sure we will learn more about it in the course of the event. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I hope that this event will help us to better understand how this transfer will come into practice, where chances and challenges are to be found. I am happy that we will have a very diverse panel bringing in different perspectives on the topic, with representatives from the European Commission, the fund administration, beneficiaries and NGOs. Thank you all very much for being with us today.

A special thanks goes to Ulrike Truderung, policy officer on EU-funding and projects in our office, not only for being the moderator today but also for planning and organising this event.

I wish us all now and interesting and fruitful debate and now hand over to Mr van den Kerckhoff for his presentation. He is the CEO of the Bonn institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Learning, and also the project co-leader of the Sprachräume project, which is lead by the Protestant Church in the Rhineland. Mr Van den Kerckhoff has previously worked as Refugee Commissioner for UNHCR and Child Protection Commissioner for UNICEF, which no doubt has provided him with excellent insights into this matter. Mr Van den Kerckhoff, the floor is yours.