Kommisjonen kommer med nye initiativer for å integrere migranter i europeiske byer.
Managing migration better is one of the top-priority of the Juncker Commission. To approach this issue in a comprehensive way, the EU Commission has defined a European agenda addressing the short-term response to the crisis situation in the Mediterranean-Western Balkans route but also the long-term management of reception and integration of refugees in the European countries. This European response to the migration crisis is combining internal and external policies and involving a whole range of actors: EU countries and institutions, local authorities, international organisations, civil society and partner outside the EU.
The institutions have acknowledged the role of cities as first points of arrival, transit hubs and ultimate destinations and they are now launching new initiatives to better involve the local power.
On Thursday the 5
th of April, the Commission hold a roundtable with mayors and vice-mayors from key European cities, national authorities and non-governmental organisations to exchange about challenges and solutions found at local level to better integrate migrants in the society. EUROCITIES, which launched on Wednesday the 4
th of April their new report ‘Refugees reception and integration in cities”, was also invited to present its work and views on refugees and migrant integration.
The event was followed by a press conference where Commissioners Avramopoulos and Creţu from DG Migration and Home affairs and DG REGIO presented new European initiatives to tackle the long-term management of the migratory flows. Among the most important is the new partnership on “Migrants and refugees” created under the forth-coming EU Urban Agenda and which will be coordinated by the city of Amsterdam. Those partnerships will involve experts of the Commission, Member States, cities and existing network and will set up an action plan for each thematic with concrete actions at EU, national and local level.
The Commission have also launched the new Urban Innovative Actions initiative which is worth 371 million of euros. It provides resources to urban areas throughout Europe to test new and unproven solutions to address urban challenges. The initiative support urban authorities or grouping of urban authorities located in one of the 28 EU Member States through financing projects but also capturing and sharing knowledge and best-practices. The first call for proposals, which ended on March 31, covered projects about 4 different topic, including integration of migrants and refugees.
Moreover European Regional Development Funds from the Cohesion Policy are available to support projects promoting integration in urban agenda. Over 2014-2020, half of the Funds envelope will be dedicated to investment in urban areas.
EU Commission’s press release on the roundtable “How to strengthen the integration of migrants in cities”:
http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/pdf/urban/migrants_urban_en.pdf
Urban Innovative Actions (an initiative from the EU Commission)
http://www.uia-initiative.eu/en
Eu Urban Agenda :
http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/policy/themes/urban-development/agenda/#Partnerships
EUROCITIES new report “Refugee reception and integration in cities” (from a survey carried out among EUROCITIES member, including Oslo)
http://nws.eurocities.eu/MediaShell/media/RefugeeReport_April16_FINAL.pdf
Text: Roxane Girard
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