A glossary for understanding

The Babel Tower delivered rather poor results. And still today, when communication is lacking, and when also shared, constructive goals are lacking, almost nothing is achieved. With due differences, this reasoning can be applied to migrations. How is it possible – was the question raised in Brussels – to draw up consistent regulations and policies to address migrations from extra-EU countries, if there is no understanding among the 27 EU Member States, if the word “asylum” risks being misunderstood, if “reception”, “repatriation”, “foreigner”, “integration” bring to mind different realities which vary according to latitude? Starting with these simple reflections, underlined in the EU by the European Council of Tampere in 1999 and put into writing in 2009 with the Stockholm Programme that deals with freedom, justice, security, migrations, the “Migration and Asylum glossary” was created by the European Migration Network (EMN), that acts in support of EU institutions’ activity in this field. The basic idea is rather simple: to provide a valid vocabulary in all 23 official languages of the EU, understood as a minimum common denominator providing the starting point to address the migration knot, with efficient replies and provisions in the areas of legislation and operative intervention at national and Community level. The Glossary is the result of many years of research that involved dozens of experts from across EU countries. The English version was issued first, and the multi-language version is due to follow suit. Jean-Louis De Brouwer, the European Commission officer who coordinated the research project, wrote in its preface: “The use and common understanding of consistent terminology presented herein serves to provide the means by which policymakers and practitioners in the Member States, as well as EU institutions, can better compare their national situation and experiences and harmonise policy concepts”. This “is further facilitated by the translations of the glossary terms into many other Member State languages”. The significant number of terms, according to De Brower, “also reflects the complex nature of asylum and migration and provides another advantage with a common reference publication”.This unusual, and under certain aspects fascinating international vocabulary, provides 300 terms that include Asylum, Brain (circulation), Citizenship, Discrimination, Expulsion, Mass Flow, as well as Genocide, Integration, Migrant Worker, Black Labour, Marriage of Convenience, Palermo Protocol (International convention to counter trafficking in persons), Repatriation, Refugee, Residence (permit), Transit… The term “Clandestine” is not mentioned, and justly so. The dictionary starts with “Reception (conditions), the full set of measures that Member States grant to asylum seekers in accordance with Directive 2003/9/EC”, whose French translation is “conditions d’accueil”, “vastaanotto-olosuhteet” in Finnish, “warunki przyjmowania” in Polish, “condições de acolhimento” in Portuguese. Different languages providing the same meaning.