Breakfast conversation
September 20, 2005

Introduction

On September 20 the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) hosted a discussion on Immigrant Integration and Terrorism in Europe.  The event aimed to explore the developments on third country national integration in the Member States of the European Union, and the links between emerging approaches and the more charged environment following several terrorist attacks in Spain, the Netherlands and the UK involving Islamic extremists of various ethnic origins.

The event was chaired by MPI’s senior policy analyst Joanne van Selm. The key panelist Jean-Louis de Brouwer, director for Immigration, Borders and Asylum at the European Commission’s Directorate General Justice, Freedom and Security introduced the issues of immigrant integration and violent radicalization and the developments of EU policy in those areas.  Robert S. Leiken, Director of the Immigration and National Security Program at the Nixon Center and the author of recent Foreign Affairs article titled: “Europe's Angry Muslims” commented on the problem of radicalization.  Susan Ginsburg, Senior Counsel and Team Leader at the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States responded by highlighting the main points of the US antiterrorist agenda.

Presentation:

Jean-Louis de Brouwer opened his presentation by noting that the European Union is in the process of developing a common EU immigration policy, but, at six years old, that process has really only just begun. The size of the Union, at twenty-five member states, and the institutional arrangements the EU has established do not allow for a common and fully fledged policy to be adopted in a short period of time.  De Brouwer stressed that while certain adjustments to the institutional and decision-making process at the EU level judged necessary after enlargement have been obstructed by the recent French and Dutch no votes on the Constitutional Treaty,  the EU member states demand a common and more active agenda in the area of immigration policy and justice and home affairs. He recounted the short history of the development EU migration policy by pointing to its different phases:

• In 1999, when work really started following the Tampere summit meeting, concern with asylum policy was at its height as a consequence of the increased inflow of asylum seekers, mainly from the former Yugoslavia.
• In 2001-2002 the priority switched to immigration controls, in particular, border controls, and tackling illegal migration.  This new focus of EU interest followed, but was not a direct consequence of, the

 September 11 attacks. The European Union had, long before September 2001, adopted the Schengen Acquis into the Amsterdam Treaty (of 1997, in force from 1999). The Schengen body of agreements had eliminated border controls between the state parties (all the EU-15 except the UK and Ireland, plus Norway and Iceland).   However, largely due to the impending enlargement of May 2004, member states were starting to feel that the Schengen Acquis was outdated and that it had to be revisited. Although Schengen is about border crossings and not about immigration specifically, it has become an implicit component on the agenda for migration management and migration control.

• Since 2003 integration andmanaging legal migration have taken over at the top of the EU agenda.  In the EU, integration policy has to do with the integration of legally residing third country nationals, as distinct from minority groups among the citizens, be they long-standing or relatively recently arrived and naturalized or second generation minorities. Previously, integration has been dealt with at the national level and has been primarily concerned with the quality of the social fabric and community policies at local and regional level. There is now new attention to developing a common approach to some basic elements of integration. This is difficult at the EU level, particularly because there is no legal basis for cooperation on immigrant integration in the EU Treaties. A set of eleven Common Basic Principles were adopted by member states in November 2004. As a follow up, requested by the member states, the Commission issues, on September 1, 2005, a communication on A Common Agenda for Integration, which highlights the main principles of the future integration policy. Streamlining integration policy into different policy areas, pre-entry integration measures such as language and civic orientation courses, social inclusion of minorities and developing a set of integration indicators are some of the biggest questions member states want to discuss within the EU’s integration framework. 
• The link to terror is another issue which has risen to the top of the broader EU justice agenda.  De Brouwer stressed that, the European Commission and the Council do not want to mix integration and the problem of violent radicalization. The Union has to adopt a long-term plan on how to prevent violent radicalization – and will seek to adopt such a plan in the near future. Stressing the decision not to connect the issues, he pointed out that the Commission deliberately chose separate publication dates for their documents on integration (1 September 2005) and one on violent radicalization which he expected to be issued before the end of September. He further pointed out that although the current discussion on violent radicalization concentrates on the Islamic community, the EU has in past decades experienced incidents of violent radicalization on number of counts: The Red Army Faction in Germany or the Red Brigade in Italy were based on political grounds; Basques in Spain have carried out terrorist acts on the basis of nationalist; and the IRA in Ireland have acted on religious grounds. The EU has to be self-critical in terms of its acquired knowledge on the subject in the light of this past. The effort now will be on trying to increase knowledge on the root causes of violent radicalization and ways in which terrorists are recruited among various subcategories of the EU population.  The European Commission is currently exploring how a series of existing and future policies could contribute to enhancing control over, and the fight against, violent radicalization. Some such policy areas already under scrutiny are in the areas of communication including media and the use of the internet, education, integration, what might be called ‘dialogue between faith communities’, and cooperation in the area of law enforcement. The aim will be to ensure that voices of moderation prevail over extremes, that democracy and justice for all is promoted, and that there is dialogue with third countries on these issues.

Panelist commentary

Robert S. Leiken responded to Jean-Louis de Brouwer by stressing that while most immigrants are not terrorists, but rather victims of terrorism, most recent terrorists have been immigrants and Muslims. Therefore, in his view one cannot divorce radicalization from the problems that Muslims have in integrating in Europe. Leiken spoke of three types of policies that have been aimed at immigrants and pursued in the past by some EU member states.  He pointed to the Dutch policy of multiculturalism, the French policy of assimilation and the German differential exclusion, all of which failed to integrate their immigrant, and especially their Muslim, communities.  Therefore it is vital to speak of integration in connection to radicalization.

Leiken stressed that radicalization often happens to people who are well integrated in some aspects but lack structural and identificational assimilation, as highlighted by Milton Gordon in 1963. While some immigrants can be acculturated their social circles are very often restricted to their own communities. This is very often true of second generation Muslim communities in Europe.  While these people often do not identify with the country to which their parents migrated, they would also not be recognized as belonging to their parents’ home country if they attempted to live there. Such people then search for the identity which they lack. Their lack of identity, or sense of belonging, comes about in large part because Europe has failed to give them any feeling of attachment or strong basis for identification with a particular country or culture. While the process of social isolation leads to their withdrawal from a community, family and in the case of Muslims the Muslim culture, they search for and adopt a universal, transnational identity such as the Uma identity. This very difficult situation in Europe gives rise to radicalization.

Susan Ginsburg spoke of her pragmatic experience and involvement with the issue of radicalization in the US. She emphasized that the US focus on radicalization has been more medium- and short-term in its focus, whereas Europe appears, from what Mr de Brouwer said, to have a longer-term agenda.  Two main topics of interest in the US at the moment are: the immigration agenda and the linkages between counterterrorism efforts and crime control.  Ginsburg stressed that with regards to radicalization the US policy focuses much more on counterterrorism than on crime control and that the two are disconnected on the policy level. Furthermore, the US has previously been challenged in working out who its partner is in Europe. The US has now come to see that it can best operated with Europe as the EU presents itself eg collectively with the EU level on biometrics, but with separate states on things like watch lists which are not coordinated through the EU. She believes that the US does not differentiate enough between third country nationals and minorities when considering the problems of terrorism and crime, which leads to a lack of effectiveness in some policy areas. The counterterrorism effort would be strengthened if the US had more clarity with regards to broader immigration issues, including the discussion on reform. She sees the visa waiver program as a cause for concern and emphasizes that the US has to look into greater cooperation with Europe to strengthen security at embarkation points, and suggests scrutinizing documents more closely.  She further said that the US already cooperates with the EU on some crime control measures through the implementation of biometric data in documents, for example. 

Questions and Answers Session

A member of the audience asked how US counterterrorism efforts could be strengthened, including reflection on the type of border issues which arise in thinking about the EU and Schengen.  Susan Ginsburg answered by saying that both the US and Canada recognize terrorism as a problem broader than immigration. However, from a counterterrorist perspective she sees the need to come to grips with the illegal infrastructure, with the southern US boarder being the main location of that. Robert S. Leiken responded to the same question by saying that a Nixon Center study showed that, according to publicly available information, out of a group of 373 captured or killed Jihadists in Europe and North America 1993 and 2004 only 6% had violated immigration laws and none of them had entered from Mexico. Hence he sees no point in focusing on the illegal Hispanic immigration, which is what comes from and through Mexico, as a tool of counterterrorism. As a policy to resolve the visa waiver program issues he suggests introducing a passport information requirement which would be imposed on anyone who is buying a ticket for travel to the US.  Such passport information could then be scrutinized before a passenger boarded a flight, and in most cases well before boarding.

Jean-Louis de Brouwer responded to several questions raised by the audience and the respondents. In reaction to a query about demographics, he emphasized that the EU is already preparing an Action Plan on legal migration, linked to the Lisbon agenda on employment. EU leaders are well aware of popular resistance to liberal immigration policies, but also aware of immigration needs.  Hence, while certain immigration decisions such as immigration programs for workers from around the world, including Africa, are being implemented they are not advertised. He also responded to Susan Ginsburg’s comment on the cooperation between the EU and the US by stating that such cooperation is progressing and that there is already a common agenda on the issues of the protection of privacy and common grounds regarding the biometrics system. Furthermore, the EU is looking to the US, and may soon investigate its own version of an entry-exit system such as the US-VISIT program. He concluded by noting that all the policies the EU is seeking to pursue are being looked at on their own merits, not in order to enhance security. However, they do realize that if they put many of these policies in place, there will most likely be an enhanced security impact.