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Theme: ‘Integration contracts’ for immigrants have
become widespread in Europe during the last 10 years but their
results remain unclear.
Summary: During the electoral campaign prior to the 9 March
2008 parliamentary elections in Spain, the Chairman of the Popular
Party (Partido Popular, PP), Mariano Rajoy, announced that if
his party won his government would change the Ley de Extranjería so that incoming migrants would sign a legally enforceable contract
whereby they would respect Spanish laws and customs, learn Spanish,
pay taxes and work actively to integrate into Spanish society. He
added that they would be sent back to their home country in the event
of spending a year without a job. While the Spanish leader referred to France and Sarkozy as the
country and the politician that inspired the electoral proposal,
‘integration contracts’ have become widespread in Europe;
the latest country to adopt this policy instrument is the UK. In
fact, the idea goes back to a 1989 Dutch report by the Scientific
Council for Government Policy (WRR) that sought policy solutions to
long-term unemployment among some immigrant groups and considered
that language acquisition was crucial in this respect. In the
Netherlands, attendance to an integration course for newcomers became
mandatory and linked to the bestowal of welfare benefits in a 1998
law. Overall, 11 countries have implemented integration courses and
contracts and set up civic and citizenship tests: Sweden, Denmark and
Finland were the first to set them up, followed by the Netherlands,
Austria, Belgium, France, the UK and Estonia (although in this last
case they are mainly directed towards the Russian minority, not new
migrants). Germany now has compulsory integration courses.
Switzerland issued an ordinance on an optional ‘integration
convention’ in 2006, which is part of the Federal Law on
Foreigners since 1 January 2008. Hungary is considering setting them
up and, as we shall see, the debate is still open in Spain.
Analysis: What all the ‘contracts’, ‘integration
courses’ and ‘citizenship trajectories’ have in
common is that they focus on integration as an individual process
whereby the new migrant is responsible for his success in the host
society and should not be a burden on the welfare state. The notion
of ‘contract’ underlines that integration is a ‘two-way
process’. This means that the immigrants have rights but also
duties and, to some extent, the obligation to integrate. It is thus
different from the multicultural approaches that focus on groups or
communities rather than individuals and seek to recognise cultural
differences. Some scholars, such as Rogers Brubaker and Christian
Joppke, see these developments as the demise of multiculturalism and
the ‘return of assimilation’. In fact, multiculturalism
has been the exception rather than the rule in Europe. Yet, in the
countries that developed the contracts –such as the
Netherlands, France and Austria– the political context in the
1990s included the existence of xenophobic extreme right or populist
parties that managed to keep immigration on the agenda. This occurred
at a time when the mainstream parties were evolving regarding the
post-war welfare state consensus, adopting activation policies (also
known as ‘welfare to work’ programmes) and denouncing
dependency on welfare benefits. In Northern Europe, the simultaneous
attacks on immigrants and the welfare state, with politicians
accusing immigrants of threatening generous social protection
systems, has been labelled ‘welfare chauvinism’.
The Dutch Civic Integration Course and its Evolution
While the Dutch ‘minorities policy’ of the 1980s had
focused on equal treatment, the legal and political integration of
immigrants and multiculturalism, policy advisers at the end of the
decade thought that emphasising cultural difference too much had
detrimental effects on the labour market integration of immigrants
who did not speak Dutch or knew Dutch customs well enough. A policy
instrument in line with the new ‘integration policy’
adopted in 1994 was the civic integration courses
(Inburgeringscursussen) that aimed to facilitate the initial
integration of newcomers and had developed at the local level in
several Dutch cities in the early 1990s. Newcomers were given a
toolkit comprising Dutch-language training material and information
about Dutch society. In 1998, the WIN law (Wet Inburgering Nederland) made the civic integration course a national
reception policy. When the courses for newcomers that local
authorities had thought useful became a national policy, it marked
the beginning of the politicisation of the immigration issue that
would soon occupy centre stage, first in 2000 with an article by the
intellectual Paul Sheffer calling multiculturalism a tragedy and
integration a failure, with the terrorist attack of 9/11 and the rise and death of the
Left-populist politician Pim Fortyun, whose LPF party won the general
elections in 2002. Later the focus was on events such as the murder
of Theo van Gogh, which was equated with the failure of integration
policy by the media and politicians, including Rita Verdonk, who was
Minister of Aliens’ Affairs and integration from 2002, when
immigration control and integration became intrinsically linked. The
Ministry of Justice, which dealt with immigration control, also
became responsible for integration, instead of the Ministry of Home
Affairs. The new policy was renamed ‘integration policy new
style’ from 2002 and focused on reforming civic integration
courses. First, prospective migrants in their country of origin had
to pass an exam proving their Dutch language skills and knowledge of
Dutch culture and society before obtaining a visa to enter the
Netherlands (The Wet Inburgering in het buitenland is in force
since March 2006). Course material costs €64 and shows gay
marriages and topless women, the test itself taken at the embassy
costs €350 to which the actual price of the permit must be added
(€430 for a temporary permit and €850 for a permanent
one).
Once in the Netherlands, newcomers must follow civic instruction
courses to have their residence permits renewed. Finally, as of 2007,
migrants have to finance their attendance at the courses themselves
and are responsible for finding them. Reimbursement (up to 70%) is
possible if migrants pass the civic test successfully. Rita Verdonk’s
proposal that all foreign-born persons aged 16 to 65 –including
those that are naturalised or come from the Dutch Caribbean and Dutch
natives living abroad– should be obliged to take the civic
integration course and test was deemed unconstitutional and rejected
by Parliament. Since its inception not all nationalities have to take
the civic instruction courses: neither EU nationals nor US citizens
or Australians have to take the test.
The French Accommodation and Integration Contract
France was one of the first countries to call immigrant policy
‘integration policy’. In fact, when in the 1980s
immigrant policy became politically relevant, there was a reinvention
of the ‘French model of integration’ by the mainstream
parties and the creation of a High Council for Integration, an
advisory body that defined integration in a 1991 report as
‘encouraging the active participation in society of all the men
and women who are to stay durably on French soil accepting that some
differences including cultural ones will subsist yet stressing
resemblance and convergence in the area of equal rights and duties to
ensure the cohesion of our social fabric’. The idea of an integration contract, borrowed from the Dutch, emerged
after the 2002 General elections. It was first an experiment in 12
French departments in the second half of 2003, and slowly spread to
become a national policy at the end of 2006. A new law in 2007 made
the Contrat d’accueil et d’intégration mandatory rather than optional, as it had been previously. In case of
non-compliance with the terms of the contract, the residence permit
might not be renewed by the prefect (the departmental head of the
central administration). The contract is presented during a half-day
event that includes the viewing of a film called Living in France and followed by an individual interview in which the immigrant’s
language skills are tested, his/her needs in terms of work, obtaining
social security and housing are discussed, and a medical check-up
takes place. During the interview, the contract is explained. It
stipulates that the immigrant must respect French values, such as the
separation of Church and state and equality between men and women,
and attend a one-day training session on French institutions, which
is translated into several languages. If knowledge of the French
language is not deemed adequate, the immigrant is offered up to 400
(free) hours of language training and in the end takes a test to
obtain ‘the French beginners’ diploma’. All the
training is now organised by a new agency in charge of admissions
policy, the Anaem (National Agency for the Reception of Foreigners
and Immigration) that was established at the same time as the
contract. It should be underlined that another agency is in charge of
immigrant integration, the Acsé (ex-Fas and
ex-Fasild), so the contract is part of France’s
admissions policy (immigration control) and not integration policy.
The contract is now important for obtaining permanent residence (the
‘10-year card’) and should soon be necessary for
naturalisation. Compared with the Dutch case, it is free and is
implemented after the arrival of migrants: it concerns persons over
18 that are family members of immigrants and French nationals,
refugees and labour migrants who stay for at least a year. EU
citizens do not sign a contract. Of the first 200,000 contracts
signed in 2003-06, over two thirds knew French well enough. This can
be explained by the fact that many signatories had already been in
France for a few years. The system might evolve as the Dutch one but
continues to be based to a greater extent on incentives. It is not
yet linked to citizenship as in the British, which we will now
review.
The British ‘Path to Citizenship’
On 28 February 2008, a new points-based system for immigration was
launched in the UK. That day the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith
declared: ‘Today’s proposals are part of the biggest
changes to British immigration policy in a generation which includes
a new deal for those migrants seeking citizenship here, a new UK
Border Agency to strengthen controls at the border and the
introduction of ID cards for foreign nationals’. Immigration control, integration and access to citizenship are thus
clearly linked and addressed together. This is an example of the new
‘Nexus between
Immigration, Integration
and Citizenship’, to use the terms of Sergio Carrera. In February 2008, the Home Office published a Green Paper (The Path to Citizenship)
whose main elements are as follows: creating a three-stage route to
citizenship, including a new ‘probationary period’;
requiring immigrants to show that they have contributed to the UK, or
else leave the country; denying public benefits to immigrants who
have not received full citizenship; requiring immigrants to prove
they can speak English; requiring those convicted of minor crimes to
spend more time on citizenship probation; requiring immigrants to
contribute to a fund devoted to managing the impact of immigration;
and speeding the citizenship process for immigrants who become
involved in their local communities through volunteering. The plan is
in line with the Prime Minister’s speech on managed migration,
which centred on the notion of contract: ‘citizenship (…)
should depend upon actively entering into a contract through which,
by virtue of responsibilities accepted, the right to citizenship is
earned’. In that speech, Gordon Brown also announced ‘tougher
citizenship tests’. It should be noted that citizenship tests
are fairly recent in the UK: the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and
Asylum Act of 2002, which only entered into force on 1 November 2005,
requires applicants for naturalisation to pass the ‘Life in the
UK’ test and know English, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic.
The idea that immigrants deserve to be naturalised if they are a net
gain to the nation is also found in other countries. For instance, in
France naturalisation procedures often assess the economic
self-sufficiency of the applicant and are biased against poor
applicants. Quantitative studies on how French bureaucrats assess the
‘assimilation’ of applicants have shown that they favour
the economically productive. In the end, however, the British plan resembles some of the most
punitive systems in Europe, such as the Austrian one. In Austria, the
system is based on a series of penalties for failure to comply: if
the integration programme is not completed within the first year, the
residence permit can only be renewed for another year; otherwise
state financing is progressively withdrawn, fines have to be paid and
after four years without having completed the course the immigrant
can be expelled if authorities prove the immigrant’s
unwillingness to integrate.
Conclusion: From the Dutch precedent to the French
‘accommodation and integration contract’ and the UK Green
Paper on the path to citizenship, there has been some evolution in
the objectives of the contracts, the means allotted for the new
immigrant to meet his/her term of the contract and the importance of
the contract in gaining residence permit renewals and access to
citizenship. At one end of the spectrum, the contract is an
incentive-based structure so that newcomers learn to speak the host
country’s language in order to find a job and incorporate into
the local society more easily. The language courses are free, the
contract is optional and the sanctions in case of failure to attend a
class or pass a test are minimal. At the other end of the spectrum,
the contract is primarily a tool to deter unwanted migration flows.
Language and civic instruction tests must be passed in the country of
origin before an immigration visa is issued. Language and civic
instructions classes are not free and neither are the tests and
procedures involved in what is also called ‘a citizenship
trajectory’. Sanctions rather than incentives prevail: failure
to attend means risking the non-renewal of residence permits or the
loss of social rights. It might even affect one’s chances of
being naturalised. Most systems include civic instruction classes
that stress principles such as equality between men and women,
freedom of expression and secular values, in ways that suggest that
immigrants come from cultures and political traditions that do not
share these values, implicitly targeting countries where Islam
dominates. Integration, however, is mainly measured through an
economic lens rather than a cultural one in these schemes:
unemployment and welfare state dependency are signs of failed
integration. The logic of integration courses is that once the host
language is learnt, new migrants will get a job. It overlooks other
factors that explain differential access to employment for migrants
and non-migrants alike.
In fact, while there are differences between each contract, some
common questions arise. First, regarding civic instruction: what
‘national values’ or ‘European values’ are
taught? How and who decides and designs the content of the course
materials and the tests? The French film, used in the course, showing
military airplanes flying over the Arc de Triomph in Paris on 14
July, is one example of the need to reflect on the content of these
courses.
There has not so far been a sufficient evaluation of these
programmes. This is the case of language teaching. There is a need to
be practical: what is the quality of the language teaching? Is it
geared towards getting a job or mere basics? What happens when
persons have a learning impediment or are too old to learn quickly
enough a new foreign language? In the Dutch case there was much
discussion about the courses not being scheduled at an appropriate
time for women with children or that were held too far from the
actual neighbourhoods where new migrants lived. Are there any good
reasons to make the programmes mandatory or to force people to pay
for them?
It seems that the contracts are most harsh in countries where labour
migration is very limited and where there is a negative net migration
(more people leave than come in) such as France and the Netherlands.
The context is one of politicised symbolic immigrant politics and
restrictive migration policies.
Integration contracts are widespread and the EU is now also exerting
some mild bureaucratic pressure to set them up. In November 2004, the
European Council adopted the Common Basic Principles for Immigrant
Integration Policy in the EU (Council document 16054/04). The 4th common basic principle states that ‘basic knowledge of the host
society’s language, history and institutions is indispensable
for integration; enabling immigrants to acquire this basic knowledge
is essential to successful integration’. This suggests that
member states should set up language and civic instruction courses to
help migrants integrate. Given that the first principle defines
integration as a ‘two-way process of mutual accommodation’
and the second one affirms that ‘integration implies respect
for the basic values of the European Union’, the EU framework
for integration legitimates the idea of a contract between the two
sides of the integration process and encourages the creation of
courses that teach ‘EU values’. The principles are
disseminated through a form of open coordination for migrant
integration with a programmed (INTI) funding information exchange
among so-called ‘best practices’.
The key points that need to be emphasised and reflected upon are as
follows:
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The contract is signed between unequal partners and with no room for
negotiation. This seems problematic from a legal point of view.
-
Linked to this issue, it is clear from experience that each person
has different needs and perspectives upon arrival. Depending on the
facilities and the political context that migrants find locally, the
contracts might be the same but reality varies. It could be the
worse of both worlds: no equal treatment and no treatment flexible
enough to accommodate different needs and situations.
-
The contract has a very narrow conception of integration, which is a
process that depends on many factors. Forcing people to take
language and civics lessons will not guarantee their economic
success or social incorporation.
-
The contract does not view integration as involving the host
society. The latter has no role to play in welcoming the migrants.
-
The contract establishes the unequal treatment of those that are
exempt (EU citizens and often highly-skilled or OECD migrants), thus
reinforcing the idea that only some migrants need to integrate or
have difficulties doing so.
-
The success of integration will be reduced to quantitative
indicators on civics and language test success rates and the number
of contracts signed, saying little about what is really happening to
newcomers on the ground.
The consequences of these contracts in terms of social cohesion and
the adaptation of migrants to their new environment should be
assessed as soon as possible. They seem to reflect a climate of
suspicion of immigrants, especially those from Muslim countries.
Indeed the focus on values such as secularism, women’s or gay
rights is telling in this respect. They also seem to be the solution
to all sorts of distinct public issues related to immigration, which
clearly the contract and classes cannot ‘solve’:
unemployment amongst some migrant groups, the fear of Islam. The risk
is also that the bureaucratic machinery that manages the newcomers’
programmes leads to the disappearance of other policies that have a
more global vision of the integration process.
Virginie Guiraudon
Permanent Research Fellow at the CNRS, Lille, France, and
Marie-Curie Professor at the Department of Political and Social
Sciences, European University Institute
Annex: Links to Reports and Official Web Sites
Comparative Analysis
Serge Carrera, A Typology of Different Integration Programmes in
the EU, briefing paper IP/C/LIBE/FWC/2005-22
submitted 13 January 2006, Immigration
and Integration, DG Internal Policies of the Union, Directorate C –
Citizens’ rights and Constitutional Affairs, http://www.libertysecurity.org/article1192.html
Dirk Jacobs & Andrea Rea, The End of National Models?
Integration Courses and Citizenship Trajectories in Europe, paper
presented at the EUSA conference in Montreal, 17-19 May 2007, http://www.unc.edu/euce/eusa2007/papers/jacobs-d-11i.pdf
ECRE & Caritas Europa, NGO network of integration focal points
report on integration programmes and language courses funded by the
European Commission INTI programme, posted in 2006, http://www.ecre.org/files/Booklet_Introduction%20programmes%20&%20language%
20courses.pdf
EU and National Official Web Sites
Link to European Commission web page on integration:
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/immigration/integration/
fsj_immigration_integration_en.htm;
and to the Council Common Basic Principles on integration: http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/jha/82745.pdf
Link to the French agency in charge of managing the CAI (integration
and accommodation contract): http://www.anaem.fr/article.php3?id_article=458;
and to a specimen of the contract itself: http://www.anaem.fr/IMG/pdf/cai_publication/CONTRAT%202007%20recto%20verso.pdf
Link to the UK government Home Office February 2008 Green Paper “Path
to Citizenship: The Next Step in Reforming the Immigration System:
http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/aboutus/
consultations/pathtocitizenship/pathtocitizenship?view=Binary
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