“We need the migrants but we don’t like them. We need to solve this paradox”. This is how Philippe Fargues, Director of the Migration Policy Centre at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, opened the EIB Institute-sponsored breakout session on “Innovative Solutions to (not so) “New” Problems” at the 2016 European Forum Alpbach.
Europe is getting older and representing a smaller portion of the world’s population, while the average immigrant to Europe is 25 years old. If properly managed, migration will represent an opportunity to tackle Europe’s ageing problem. “We have to turn the burden of refugees into an asset. We have to turn refugees into workers,” he added.
For Arnon Mantver, Founding Volunteer Chairman of the Center for International Migration and Integration (CIMI), an independent NGO dedicated to assisting Israel in meeting its migration challenges, Europe may not yet have found the right set of policies and tools, but examples exist elsewhere and can be replicated. “Integrating immigrants takes at least a generation and being able to work is key,” said the former Director General of the Jewish Agency’s Immigration and Absorption Department during the mass immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union and from Ethiopia (1 million between 1990 and 2005). Click here for presentation.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but innovative social projects like those promoted by the EIB Institute and presented in Alpbach (Mobilearn and MagdasHotel) are helping to integrate refugees into host countries’ societies and labour markets. underlined Francisco de Paula Coelho, Dean of the Institute. “We tend to dislike what we don’t know. When well informed, our stereotypes and preconceived ideas about migrants fade away. Today’s young participants of Alpbach are tomorrow’s decision-makers at Davos. May they be well informed and make well founded decisions,” he concluded.
The EIB Institute has been supporting and organising roundtables at the Alpbach Forum since 2013.
