| Description |
Funding support through EU programmes
and their objectives is the EU’s main lever
to promote the integration of migrants
and refugees. Next to the soft law embodied in policy guidelines like the Common
Basic Principles of immigrant integration, it
is the amounts, binding provisions and
concrete spending rules of instruments
such as the Asylum-, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) or the structural funds
including the European Social Fund (ESF)
that define EU policy and a joint European
approach in the integration domain. In a
number of Member States, EU funds are
even the sole or nearly only source of support for integration measures and -policies, rendering them crucially important
for the outlook and opportunities of migrants and refugees in many places
across Europe. Against this background,
the proposals and negotiations on the upcoming Multiannual Financial Framework
(MFF), i.e. the 2021 to 2027 EU programme
and funding period, have become the focal point of the EU integration debate
since 2018. Local level integration actors
including cities and civil society organisations are key stakeholders in these policy
debates, whose oucomes will be decisive
for the availability of means both for early
and longer-term integration, and on local
level as much as for mainstreaming integration across all relevant policy areas.
This report synthesizes previous ReSOMA
briefs in the area of integration that have
focused on the unfolding MFF debate. Following an overview of the 2018 Commission proposals which set out scope and
structure of the future EU instruments
(chapter 1.2), it presents twelve policy debates related to the ‘what’ and the ‘how’
of EU support for integratin and their
stickicking points from a local level and
civil society perspective (chapter 2). Partly
refering to the discourse responding to recent policy trends and how they became
incorporated in the Commission proposals, partly referring to long-standing
debates between stakeholders and EU institutions, the chapter offers an abridged
version of key topics of debate as identified in the previous ReSOMA Discussion
Briefs on ‘Cities as providers of services to
* By Alexander Wollfhardt, Migration Policy Group
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migrant populations’, ‘Sustaining mainstreaming of immigrant integration’ and
‘The social inclusion of undocumented migrants’.
Against the background of these conversations and controversies, stakeholders
came forward with numerous proposals to
improve and amend the Commission proposals to better address their concerns.
The European Parliament in 2018 has been
the key arena of decision-making towards
the 2021 to 2027 MFF, with MEPs able to
amend the proposed legislation based on
the concerns driving the policy controversies and offering stakeholders the opportunity to advocate for their own proposals.
Chapter 3 shows how the suggestions for
alternative solutions brought forward converge around four mayor policy options
for the future of EU spending on integration:
Adequate funding – to ensure sufficient and flexible spending on integration according to changing needs
across all Member States
Meaningful needs assessment – to
base AM(I)F national programming
and Partnership Agreements on structured and standalone assessment of
needs and challenges
Mainstreamed, longer-term policies –
to promote comprehensive integration
policies with a long-term orientation
and mainstreaming them on Member
State and EU level
Broader participation – to ensure funds
can be accessed by civil society and
local/ regional authorities, and that
these actors are fully involved in the
funds’ governance
For each of these options main proposals
are listed as voiced by stakeholder organisations in the field, including the ReSOMA
partners ECRE, EUROCITIES, PICUM and Social Platform. The chapter also shows, in
each of the options, how the European
Parliament has amended the Commission
proposals, thus illustrating the uptake by
Parliament of solutions advocated for by
stakeholders. References to the previous
ReSOMA Policy Options Briefs on ‘High levels of EU support for migrant integration,
implemented by civil society and local authorities’ and ‘Comprehensive and mainstreamed, longer-term support for the integration of migrants’ point to more in-depth
information on the evidence base supporting these proposals, the details of the
various stakeholders positions and a mapping of the EP amendments.
Chapter 4.1 sheds light on the state of play
as of spring 2019, with the EP positions on
the key EU instruments all decided before
the EP elections and clarified at time when
MFF negotiations are gearing up in the intergovernmental Council arena. Compromises among Member States and with the
European Parliament are expected to be
reached in late 2019/early 2020. Next to
highlighting current debate among governments, the chapter stresses the importance of the preparations taking place
already now on Member State level in
terms of programming and priority setting.
How the national AM(I)F and ESF+ programmes are shaping up even now, in advance of final EU-level decisions on the
scope of the instruments, is crucially important for the future availability of EU
means for integration support and the
possibilities of key actors to benefit from
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programmes. Across all levels, governments, the Commission, European Parliament and integration stakeholder are
called upon to act accordingly, to ensure
full exploitation of the new instruments’
potential for integration support, complementarity in programme planning, comprehensive compliance with the partnership principle and a need-based approach to the services funded.
Drawing the consequence from the lack
of realtime evidence on the actual uptake of EU instruments supporting integration and on the practice of partnershipled implementation, the Synthetic Report
culminates in a proposal for a new, independent EU-wide quality monitoring
mechanism (chapter 4.2). Led by civil society and local level stakeholders across
the EU, the mechanism would provide for
ongoing, regular monitoring of how the
partnership principle is observed, national
programmes are implemented, different
funds are used, and of the quality of coordination and coherence among the instruments. Quality assessment of content
and effectiveness of projects funded
would improve the evidence base for future AM(I)F midterm reviews and allocation decisions for the second tranches of
the fund. The new mechanism would thus
aim to generate the necessary
knowledge for pushing towards
compliance with the partnership principle,
purposeful use of AM(I)F and structural
(ESF+) funds to support integration,
coordination and collaboration
among the implementing authorities,
robust mid-term review procedures.
This recommendation to set up a new, enhanced quality monitoring mechanism
not only responds to a core gap identified
in activities and analyses of stakeholders,
but also builds on ReSOMA’s dialogue with
local level and civil society experts, policymakers and researchers. In a very concrete way ReSOMA suggests the contours
of a transnational mechanism that brings
together implementation monitoring,
qualitative evaluation, empowerment
and capacity building of stakeholders, as
well as EU-wide benchmarking and mutual exchange
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