Europe
Europe
Recent Activity
This Transatlantic Council Statement examines both the challenge and opportunity for governments, in an era of skepticism about migration, to create a new definition of “we” based on a more inclusive idea of national identity and belonging, and to convince the broader society that investing in integration is an investment in shared futures.
This report challenges the recent rhetoric and addresses the advancement of policy areas for countries, examining factors that impede or facilitate successful the implementation of multiculturalism. When these facilitating conditions are present, multiculturalism can be seen as a low-risk option, andhas worked well in such cases.
For more than a decade, states have experimented with civic integration policies that require immigrants to learn the official language of their host country and acknowledge its basic norms and values—or risk losing social benefits and even residence permits. This report explores ways states can put forth smart policies that benefit natives and immigrants in host countries.
The two sides of the debate on immigration and integration in Europe share an underlying assumption that the problem is cultural, while disagreeing on whether it is the result of too much or too little respect for cultural differences. This report contends that both get the issue wrong, calling attention to the inability of policies to ensure immigrants acquire and retain work.
The Arab Spring exposed critical weaknesses and exacerbated long-held disagreements within the European Union related to asylum, immigration, and external border control policy matters that spilled over into the operation of the Schengen area.
With unemployment rates remaining persistently high in the wake of the global economic crisis, ongoing turbulence in financial markets, and new austerity in public spending, anxious publics and governments trained their attention on immigration and immigrants during 2011.
Immigration flows this year continued to respond sharply to the economic climate in major immigrant-receiving nations, as many struggled to gain a labor market foothold in the aftermath of the global economic meltdown.
Public backlash against the detention systems of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States mounted in 2011 with allegations of unacceptable living conditions, abuse, prolonged detention, and government waste.