Organised Civil Society and European Governance CIVGOV

1
Organised Civil Society and European
Governance(CIVGOV)

• Countries covered Italy, Belgium, Spain Basque
  Country, Spain Santiago, Germany, Greece,
  France, Sweden, the UK - Essex, the UK
  Stirling, Hungary, Poland.
• EU Policy and Anti-Racism

2
Racism, Migration and European Public Opinion

• Migrants often arrive in periods of full
  employment. They come to be perceived as a
  problem in times of unemployment. This is due to
  the limited territorial mobility of Europeans and
  the related cultural, structural and political
  blockages in the EU. Only about 1.5 of Europeans
  live outside their country of birth.
• European population is generally against
  immigration and would like flows to be reduced.
  This contrasts for instance with the US where
  there is more tolerance towards migration.
• This produces restrictive politicise which in
  turn encourage illegal migration and related
  illigal behaviour, which in turn encourages
  stricter policies and restrictions on arrivals.
  Over time there is an increase in the asylum
  population, in the population arrived through
  family reunification and in the illegal
  population and a decrease in the population able
  to work and needed by industry.
• This encourages right-wing movements and ethnic
  rivalry for welfare state resources.

3
Migration, perceptions of ethnic rivalry and
racism

• Public opinion and political formations are
  divided on the amount and type of migratory flows
  needed.
• Those who refuse to intervene in this field do it
  for principled reasons or conversely because they
  want to stop all flows. However, not to intervene
  is a policy position that has shown relevant
  shortcomings as countries with programmed flows
  are generally better able to reduce
  migration-related conflict.
• Resistance to migration is strong in the poorest
  and less mobile sections of the population for
  whom ethnic competition could well be a
  reasonable reaction.
• This situation could be worsening with
  enlargement.

4
Migrants, mobility and EU regulation

• A foreigner with a work permit for a EU country
  cannot use it for other EU member states he/she
  can only travel in Shengen countries. Unlike for
  EU citizens, foreigners migration can be refused
  if they do not show to be self-sufficient. Family
  reunion can be denied.
• EU norms are constructed to avoid welfare-state
  shopping. For instance, unemployment subsidies
  are only available after a certain period in
  employment and no job-seeking subsidies are
  available.
• However, in practice several welfare-state
  benefits cannot be denied. For these reasons a
  good solution would be to europeanize migration
  policy, but this meets with population distrust
  and wish to halt all migrations.
• Fundamental doubts have to be resolved on
  whether
• to encourage multiple countries of origin
• dispersion of migrants on the territory
• how to avoid the negative impact of temporary
  migration relations with ex-colonies
• whether to standardise welfare-state provisions.

5
(2) Anti-Racism and EU Institutions

• Anti-Racism is a widespread societal concern.
  There have been frequent racially-motivated
  attacks in several EU countries.
• Anti-Racist policy is a relatively old EU
  concern, but legislative instruments are still
  recent. The legal base is in article 13 of the
  Amsterdam Treaty legitimating EU-level action to
  combat various forms of discrimination, including
  racial discrimination,
• Its approval reflected the growing importance
  that this subject has acquired. Following the
  approval of article 13, several related
  initiatives have also emerged.
• What variables have hindered anti-racist policy
  and what was the role of the anti-racist movement
  in EU Institutions?

6
Anti-racism policy

• Transforming a shared norm such as the
  condemnation of racism into actual policy
  involves mediating among contrasting policy
  frames, defining issues in such a way that a
  variety of actors with contrasting interests and
  views can converge and focus their efforts on a
  process of policy change.
• At the EU level anti-racism is characterised by a
  long history of declarations of principle
  notably in the European Parliament. However,
  concrete policy initiatives were absent for at
  least twenty years (Ford, 1992).
• article 13, emerged as the outcome of pressure
  exerted by a composite advocacy coalition.

7
Anti-Racism
8
The impact of the anti-racist advocacy coalitions

• Decision making in the EU transnational
  multi-organizational field is mediated by
  processes of Corporatist intermediation and
  collegial incorporation.
• Mainstreaming of Anti-Racism is a central
  objective of EU institutional actors and
  activists. Their impact is maximised when it
  resonates with legitimate EU discourse. This
  implies on the one hand relating to a complex
  activist base and on the other to institutions.
• Several anti-discrimination civil society
  organizations address the EU institutional
  context. They include anti-racist organizations,
  womens issues and disability rights and
  movement-related groups, where a range of
  political parties, NGOs, movements, organizations
  and churches collaborate in representing the
  elderly, defending civil liberties, acting
  against homelessness, or poverty, or on behalf of
  refugees, migrants and asylum seekers.
• The role and number of these transnational
  organizations has grown at the EU level,
  paralleling a growth of similar organizations in
  other international arenas.

9
Anti-racism from within

• There are internal and external causes for a
  perceived crisis of the anti-racist movement.
  Slow Europeization, disparate frames, few
  committed supporters in an age of movement
  retrenchment.
• Internally, there has been a lack of solidarity
  between the different components which are too
  fragmented in terms of occupational, religious
  and ethnic background to agree on a definition of
  objectives and methods. Fragmented ethnic
  assertiveness. Division between minorities and
  white anti-racist activists, with some arguing
  that anti-racists should let minorities speak for
  themselves.
• Some think anti-racism could be a set of
  dimensions connected to religious and cultural
  identities, while others privilege a cohesive
  political identity whereby the anti-racism takes
  place in association or is even super-ordinate to
  class and gender conflict.
• External difficulties with the media and public
  opinion.
• The EU anti-racism coalition has to mediate among
  these and other conflicts. However, selection
  processes operate to simplify their advocacy
  efforts.

10
Institutional selection of frames

• Mainstreaming Anti-Racism
• Assimilationism
• Multi-Culturalism
• Militant Anti-Fascism
• Anti-Capitalist Anti-Racism

11
Asylum and Immigration

• The Amsterdam treaty sets minimum common
  standards to regulate asylum
• It sets common standards for dealing with illegal
  immigration, granting of residence permits, the
  rights of legally resident citizens of non-member
  countries.
• Under the Amsterdam Treaty, the areas of visa,
  asylum, immigration and other policies related to
  free movement of persons, like judicial
  cooperation in civil matters, are transferred
  from the EU's third pillar to its first pillar
• those provisions offer new opportunities to
  tackle an area of major public concern and thus
  to bring the European Union closer to the people
• An area of freedom, with homogeneous procedures,
  equivalent responses, better co-operation in
  criminal matters, a common sense of justice.

12
Migration Policy in the EU

• After the ratification of Maastricht in 1993,
  asylum policy, the rules governing the crossing
  of the external borders, and checks on persons at
  borders, immigration policy and policy relating
  to nationals of non-member countries are
  considered as matters of common interest to the
  Member States of the European Union.
• However, most of the instruments are
  recommendations or resolutions and are not
  binding on the Member States.
• A mandatory instruments in the European Union is
  the Convention Determining the State Responsible
  for Examining Applications for Asylum Lodged in
  one of the Member States of the European
  Communities (signed in Dublin in 1990)