Report prepared by the Migration Policy Group for the 6th Conference of European Ministers responsible for migration affairs.
Publishers: Council of Europe
Available at http://book.coe.int/
Publishing Location: Warsaw / Strasbourg
The review of the implementation of Community Relations policies involved identifying similarities in defining the issues at stake and the applied solutions for common problems, while taking into consideration the varying positions member states hold within Europe (EU-members, new versus old members of the Council of Europe, etc.), their diverse experiences in dealing with immigration and community relations, and the different statuses held by certain groups of immigrants in the various member states (EU-nationals, third-country nationals, former colonials, ethnic minorities, second and third generation immigrants, undocumented residents, etc.).
Round table discussions formed the basis of the review process. During the course of 1995 and early 1996, the following round tables were co-hosted by (semi-) official or private organisations: the Commission for Racial Equality (London, March 1995); the Fondazione Cariplo Per Le Iniziative E Lo Studio Sulla Multietnicita (Milan, April 1995); the Commission Nationale Consultative de Droits de L’Homme (Paris, May 1995); the Department of Immigration Affairs at the Ministry of Local Government (Oslo, May 1995); the Beauftragte der Bundesreierung für die Belange der Ausländer (Bonn, June 1995); the Spanish Ministry for Social Affairs (Madrid, November 1995); the Dutch Ministry for Welfare, Health and Sport (The Hague, November 1995); the Polish Interior Ministry (Warsaw, January 1996); and the Romanian Council for National Minorities and the Interior Ministry (Bucharest, March 1996).
The round tables included senior officials from relevant ministries, migration experts and representatives of (im)migrants’ community and non-governmental organisations where participants evaluated the extent to which governments have taken positive and successful steps to develop and implement community relations policies.
