Contradictory Developments in Local, National, and EU-level Integration Policies: The Dutch Case

Professor Rinus Penninx
Director, Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, University of Amsterdam

July 14, 2004

Introduction

Professor Penninx set out by noting that public discourse, climate and policies on immigrant integration in the Netherlands have changed significantly during the last two years. His presentation focused on what has happened and why. In order to understand the developments in this area one has to look at the history of Dutch integration policymaking, which is where Professor Penninx started.

Integration Policies: the Dutch case

The impetus to develop active and proactive integration policies began, Professor Penninx explained, in the late 1970s when a report of the Scientific Council for Government Policy, entitled`Towards a general Ethnic Minorities Policy¹ was published. The report depicted a scenario that assumed immigrants would stay temporarily while in practice, as we now know, their stay has been long-term. The failures of the policies were to be found in their unintended consequences.

It is relevant, particularly from a political perspective, to note that the policies followed the dramatic events involving some of the Moluccan immigrants. One such event was the train hijacking by a group of Moluccans, the first incident of such violence in the Netherlands, and failed policies towards that specific group.

In 1980, 1981 and again in 1983 policy documents were written that formed the basis for a completely new policy: an ethnic minority policy. The main principles of this policy were:

• equality in the socio-economic domain
• inclusion and participation in the political domain, and
• equity in the domain of culture and religion within the limits of the Dutch constitution.

The most important factor in this policy development was the existence of a broad political consensus that reforms were necessary. Immigration and integration were not politicized issues then; in fact they were kept deliberately off the agenda of political campaigns. That consensus was able to overcome the potential negative consequences of huge unemployment among immigrants (between 30% and 40%) while overall national unemployment figures peaked at 16% in 1983. This was the same year in which the final Minorities Bill was passed. The introduction of new policies came from the government level and was not a consequence of strong political pressure by immigrant organizations.

The definition of the problem and formulation of policies in the early 1980s was followed by a phase of instrumentation and implementation of these policies. Indeed, quite substantial steps were taken in the mid 1980s. In the legal-political domain there were four major accomplishments:

• Anti-discrimination legislation was reinforced and a structure for reporting and consultation established.
• Active and passive voting rights for aliens were introduced in 1985.
• Dutch citizenship law was changed in 1986 to include more elements of jus soli (citizenship based on place of birth), thus making it much easier for alien immigrants to become Dutch citizens. Additionally, the practice of allowing double nationality was actively introduced in 1992.
• A consultation structure for all target groups of minority policies was established that would give these groups a voice in matters regarding their position in society. The idea that immigrant organization would be important for individuals within groups and also for integration activities where organizations bridge the gap between immigrants and the larger society. Subsidizing such organizations both at the national and local level, and trying to engage them in integration efforts became an important strategic aspect of policy implementation.

Labor market and unemployment

During the 1960s, the influence of government on the labor market decreased and authorities did not have real instruments to steer the distribution of scarce jobs. Efforts to influence the creation and distribution of jobs in the free market initially took the form of a voluntary agreement between employers and workers¹ unions. This agreement turned out to be purely symbolic. In the beginning of the 1990s, a soft law was introduced, inspired by the Canadian Employment Equity Act, requiring employers to report on the ethnic composition of their work force and make plans for a more balanced recruitment. It was also primarily a symbolic gesture, and implementation has been erratic. The only forceful instrument that the government used in the period 1986 through 1993 was an affirmative action plan for national and local government employment. This was effective in the sense that the percentage of government officials of immigrant background rose significantly during that period.

Minority policies for the labor market have been weak and ineffective, simply because of the lack of powerful policy instruments. Interestingly enough, the market itself solved the problem of immigrant unemployment in the 1980s and early 1990s. The continuous boom of the Dutch economy, particularly in the second half of the 1990s, led to a sharp decrease of general and immigrant unemployment. The boom even resolved labor shortages in certain sectors at the turn of the century. It was the market that brought down the unemployment rate of immigrants from 30-40% to below 10%.

Education: Policies in the education domain have been an important part of ethnic minority policies from the beginning. By far, the most specific financial resources have been spent in this area. Most resources have been spent on measures to improve the performance of immigrant children in the educational system. One such policy was a point system in which schools received significantly more money for children of immigrant background than they did for middle-class native pupils. A recent proposal of the Minister of Education proposed abolishing the specific high rating for minority children altogether and shift the extra financial means to pupils of a low socio-economic background. Apart from this general financial assistance to schools, a relatively small portion was dedicated to specific measures such as education in native languages and cultures. The measure on education in native languages has been problematic over time; in the nineties, it was perceived more as ineffective and even counterproductive. As a result it was taken out of the regular program and recently it was abolished altogether.

Religion: As for religion and Dutch society has a unique history in which society was organized according to religious segments. Each religious group had its own institutional arrangements within its segment of society e.g. its own schools, workers and trade unions, political parties, etc. That society no longer exists as a consequence of the strong secularization from the 1960s onwards, but the legal ramifications of it still persists in many domains. It is against this background that the new religions of immigrants could legally claim facilities such as denominational schools and broadcasting facilities on the same conditions as established religions. The new minority policies in the early 1980s furthermore stressed the importance of equity and equal facilities in this field. In a time when Dutch society was becoming increasingly secularized and attempting to rearrange the relations between State and Church, Muslims and Hindus were invited to the negotiating table with established churches to formulate the new principles. The outcome was a relatively quick institutionalization of these religions on the same footing as other churches. It was only in the nineties that these new institutional arrangement came under fire again.

Housing: Policies in the domain of housing have been among the most successful. By 1981, a fundamental change was introduced that allowed legally residing aliens full access to social housing, which was previously denied them. Social housing makes up a large part of all housing in major cities in the Netherlands (a typical welfare state phenomenon), and social housing distribution is `colorblind¹ according to socio-economic criteria like income. As a result this measure had very positive effects for the position of most minority groups. One of the consequences of a colorblind distribution system was that there are no `ethnic homogenous concentrations¹ in quarters; rather, immigrants of different backgrounds, as well as the native Dutch, that share the same socio-economic characteristics live together in quarters dominated by social housing.

In Conclusion: Current Political Discourse

The public discourse in the 1990s on immigration has been dominated by what can be called an `asylum crisis¹. Since the mid-1980s, asylum seekers from all parts of the world have applied for asylum in the Netherlands, but there was a significant increase in 1993, after Germany changed its lenient asylum policies. Asylum applications peaked to a number of 53,000 in one year. The initial friendly asylum reception of the early 1980s changed in the late 1980s to a sober system of reception. By 1993, both the bureaucracy for reception and handling of evaluation procedures were overloaded. Years of attempting to reform asylum procedures followed, but the crisis did not end. The number of asylum applicants, who have been in limbo for years and not allowed to work or have an education, have increased. The number of asylum seekers that were denied access, but who did not return to their home countries, increased and swelled the ranks of illegal residents. Measures were taken to exclude illegal residents from utilizing all social services through the introduction of the ³linkage law² that required checking legal residence status before services could be provided. During the same period, a new instrument for integration was developed at the local level in a number of cities in the Netherlands. Immigrants would be given a ³toolkit² which included reception courses for newcomers, Dutch language training, and information on the functioning of important institutions in Dutch society. Local policymakers felt the need to provide these tools to all newcomers and developed these resources systematically in their cities. This instrument was later adopted by national policies.