Migration - Europe's Challenge
The Research Project "Migration - Europes's challenge" is a joint project between the European Liberal Forum, CentreForum and FORES to compare migration policies in European countries and Canada, searching for examples of successful immigration.
Swedish green and liberal research foundation FORES (Forum for Reforms, Entrepreneurship and Sustainability) arranged a workshop on migration. Seminar consisted of presentations held by Canadian, German, British and Swedish experts.
Each preview had its own varying empahsis on the subject, but some shared opinions and problems could also be found. According to Howard Duncan and Alasdair Murray, both Canada and UK had some positive experiences on point based system, which is system based on ranking migrants by their skills and qualities. Furthermore the questions of a nation-state and nationality were discussed by Germany's Barbara Luabenthal and Howard Duncan from Canada, as they both tried to figure out how to combine these issues with migration without creating a conflict. Canada's answer to the question was to ephasise multiculturality whereas Germany's approach was to stress integration via german culture. However, some of the problems concerning migration are caused by national identity, because Germany for example wasn't willing to admit its status as a immigrant country until recent years and thus had some major issues in bringing together immigration and immigration policy.
According to UK's presentator Alasdair Murray, the focus of political debate in UK is shifted from asylum seekers to costs and benefits of economic migration. 'Sustainability' of population growth is also more important issue than the question of race and culture. All in all the trend in UK and other countries seems to be the growth of economic migration. Swedish presentator Jan Ekberg shared the same views but he also brought up the question about the unemployment of immigrants. Especially interesting detail was vast regional differences in the employment rate of immigrants between different areas in Sweden. The employment rate was highest in small business areas where entrepreneurial climate and flexible labour market were claimed to be the main reasons for this exceptional success.
Workshop for successful migration was part of larger scale project called "Så kan incandring lyckas". More information about these projects can be found from www.fores.se
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Swedish green and liberal research foundation FORES (Forum for Reforms, Entrepreneurship and Sustainability) arranged a workshop on migration. Seminar consisted of presentations held by Canadian, German, British and Swedish experts.
Each preview had its own varying empahsis on the subject, but some shared opinions and problems could also be found. According to Howard Duncan and Alasdair Murray, both Canada and UK had some positive experiences on point based system, which is system based on ranking migrants by their skills and qualities. Furthermore the questions of a nation-state and nationality were discussed by Germany's Barbara Luabenthal and Howard Duncan from Canada, as they both tried to figure out how to combine these issues with migration without creating a conflict. Canada's answer to the question was to ephasise multiculturality whereas Germany's approach was to stress integration via german culture. However, some of the problems concerning migration are caused by national identity, because Germany for example wasn't willing to admit its status as a immigrant country until recent years and thus had some major issues in bringing together immigration and immigration policy.
According to UK's presentator Alasdair Murray, the focus of political debate in UK is shifted from asylum seekers to costs and benefits of economic migration. 'Sustainability' of population growth is also more important issue than the question of race and culture. All in all the trend in UK and other countries seems to be the growth of economic migration. Swedish presentator Jan Ekberg shared the same views but he also brought up the question about the unemployment of immigrants. Especially interesting detail was vast regional differences in the employment rate of immigrants between different areas in Sweden. The employment rate was highest in small business areas where entrepreneurial climate and flexible labour market were claimed to be the main reasons for this exceptional success.
Workshop for successful migration was part of larger scale project called "Så kan incandring lyckas". More information about these projects can be found from www.fores.se