Immigrants, rights and legality

The Council of Europe and the EU are asked to work together on “a comprehensive, coherent and transparent immigration policy” for the whole of Europe. The “Group of Eminent Persons” of the Council of Europe voiced their appeal in a Report titled “Living Together. Combining diversity and freedom in 21-st century Europe”, presented on July 7 in Rome by the Secretary General of the CoE Thorbjørn Jagland together with Emma Bonino, Vice-President of the Italian Senate and member of the Group. The Group is headed by the former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer and is composed by nine members that include Fiscer and Bonino as well as Timothy Garton Ash (United Kingdom), Martin Hirsch (France), Danuta Hübner (Poland), Ayþe Kadýoðlu (Turkey), Sonja Licht (Serbia), Vladimir Lukin (Russian Federation) and Javier Solana Madariaga (Spain). It was presented for the first time past May 11 in Istanbul by Javier Solana (cf. SIR Europe 35/2011). Before its Rome presentation the document was presented in Berlin (May 23), London (June 7) and Strasbourg (June 24).Diversity and equality. The document was commissioned by Jagland for European parliaments and governments. It focuses on the questions that pose a threat to the future of European integration. “The response” envisages 59 “proposals for action” that European nations and their institutions are called to implement. The document holds that “identities are a voluntary matter for the individual concerned”, and that “no one should be forced to choose or accept one primary identity to the exclusion of others”. The document calls upon European societies “to embrace diversity, and accept that one can be a “hyphenated European” – for instance a Turkish-German, a North African-Frenchwoman or an Asian-Brit – just as one can be an African- or Italian-American”. They “should have a say in making the law”, “whatever their faith, culture or ethnicity”. Eight risks and seventeen guiding principles. In the first part of the Report, the Group identifies eight specific risks to Council of Europe values: rising intolerance; rising support for xenophobic and populist parties; discrimination; the presence of a population virtually without rights; parallel societies; Islamic extremism; loss of democratic freedoms; and a possible clash between “religious freedom” and “freedom of expression”. In the second part, the Group begins by setting out 17 principles which it believes “should guide Europe’s response to these threats”, starting with the statement that “at a minimum, there needs to be agreement that the law must be obeyed, plus a shared understanding of what the law is and how it can be changed”. It then goes on to identify the main actors able to bring about the necessary changes in public attitudes: educators, mass media, employers and trade unions, civil society, churches and religious groups, towns and cities, member states, and European and international institutions.Extending the right to vote. The report then concludes with 59 “proposals for action”, the first 17 of which are labeled “strategic recommendations”, while the remainder, “specific recommendations”, address mainly the European Union, the Council of Europe, and their member states. These include “to extend the full rights and obligations of citizenship, including the right to vote, to as many of their resident population as possible”, to correct “misleading information and stereotypes about migration”, “to treat asylum seekers and migrants arriving in Europe fairly and humanely, with appropriate solidarity and burden-sharing among member states”. Finally, the peoples of Europe are “urged” to reach out to “their neighbours in the Middle East and North Africa who are now so courageously demonstrating their attachment to universal values of freedom and democracy”, notably by offering them the chance to participate, “with an appropriate status”, in European institutions and conventions. Finally, Poland and Ukraine, as presidents respectively of the EU and the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers are invited to convene a joint summit on diversity to “consider the issues raised in this report and agree on a joint strategy for action in the field of diversity and human rights”. Lack of agreement on the burqa. “Authentic reception and integration don’t require new provisions, provided that the existing ones are adopted are respected – claimed Thorbjørn Jagland. However, “there is an issue on which we failed to reach an agreement that is, the question of the integral veil in public places”. It is not a matter of questioning the principle according to which “everyone dresses as they please” but rather to decide on the possibility of wearing clothes “that conceal a person’s identity in public”. “As far as I’m concerned- she concluded – ascertaining the identity of an individual in public places falls within everyone’s rights and duties”.