Syrian Refugees: 2016 #01 a Spectre called EU - Eurac Research · Europe. The Syrian refugees are a reality test: Political Europe has been a spectre. Rethinking another Europe is

EDITORIAL

Syrian Refugees: a Spectre called EU

#01 Newsletter 2016 — EURAC Institute for Minority Rights

NEWSLETTERInstitute for Minority Rights

2016 #01

01 Asylum Seekers and Refugees in South Tyrol: Information against Prejudice

02 Once More: The Brenner Pass - Uniting or Seperating Italy and Austria?

03 Summer School 2016 - Integration/Disintegration

04 Special Issue on Civic Integration Policies

05 Socio-Economic Equality and Political Participation of Indigenous Peoples

06 Successful start of South Tyrol’s Autonomy Convention

07 Publications

08 Books

The harsh reality at present is the ultimate expression of political cynicism. We are witnessing the collapse of a Titanic called Syria. From the distance of our shores, we see the ship as it sinks. Instead of heading to the place of origin to build humanitarian corridors, though, we not only become spectators of a Darwinian struggle for survival but, when the refugees arrive, their difficulties continue as a consequence of the neglect of our political leaders—which, in the best of cases, turn their heads towards their internal affairs, or simply insult the refugees with the argument that they affect the stability of their governments.Why is it so difficult to take a political decision on refugees? Why, when a decision is taken, do economic and national logics prevail over the humanitarian one? How can Europe become one of the main gatekeepers of smuggling without even being able to do the most elementary policy effort: creating humanitarian corridors for Syrian families? We may say that there cannot be policies without politics. Syrians f leeing their own country is a multifaceted phenomenon that reveals many of the most profound cleavages within the EU nowadays. Rather than engaging in the real core humanitarian problem, European countries, old and new ones, are politicising the issue to consolidate their own political power and even to inf luence the EU for their membership, like Turkey.Beyond all the discourses the crisis is generating, most of them with enormous emotion and despair, with a real feeling of being prisoner of a political iron cage, it is surely one of the most paradigmatic examples of the failure of the most profound idea of Europe after the second World War, and the ideal of a political and social Europe, very much mythologized since Maastricht Treaty in 1992. This narrative has certainly helped those living outside to build a mirage and construct their migratory expectations around a false idea: that Europe is an independent political body from a global and even geopolitical perspective. Because, what is the added value of the political Europe today? Shared humanitarian values? European common good? European citizenship? The inability to take urgent decisions regarding large-scale humanitarian affairs makes evident that what prevails are economic and national interests. This is even true for other mobility regimes, with the restrictions on intra-EU freedom of movement for European citizens themselves, where there is not a common European labour market, and where the national market protection prevails. For refugees the situation is even worse, since national arguments trample any attempt to develop a thin European common good. The post-national condition that the European Union was supposed to picture is nothing more than a great European security coalition to preserve member states’ own national affairs. European leaders not only dispute about nationality when dealing with refugees, but also reach the heights of political cynicism in their attempt to criminalise NGOs and other social actors defending the human dignity of European society.There is simply no interplay between the economical, social and political dimensions of the EU, but rather a ranking of priorities, where economic logic prevails over national policies (the struggle for distributing refugees territorially is an economic argument, as if refugees were farm products!) and where the social dimension is only taken into account as public opinion and potential voters in a political turnout. Public opinion is what most leaders assume for society: just a variable incorporated within governments’ geopolitical strategies, without any social and humanitarian interest. Such a picture in this second decade of the twenty-first century shows that we have just realized that the political dimension of the EU has been a rhetorical political construct, socially desired, but that at the end we “European citizens” feel cheated. (to be continued on the next page)

Visit our website at www.eurac.edu/imr

Research Training Consultation Publications

Prof. Ricard Zapata-Barrero


01 Asylum Seekers and Refugees in South Tyrol: Information against Prejudice

(continuation of the editorial) It may now be too late to listen to the claim of most European political leaders that we need to construct Europe through a feeling of European identity! Our political leaders are missing the opportunity to construct this membership sentiment. If this European political “utopian rhetoric” has been working in several ways during these last decades, maybe only eroded by the Constitutional national referendums failures and the emerging entrance of national-xenophobic parties in the European Parliament, with the failure of assisting Syrian refugees we are witnessing the last lunge.Taken from whatever front (humanitarian values, social principles) we reach the same diagnosis: this is not a refugee crisis but the crisis of political Europe. The Syrian refugees are a reality test: Political Europe has been a spectre. Rethinking another Europe is now a social imperative.

Prof. Ricard Zapata-BarreroDirector Interdisciplinary Research Group on Immigration (GRITIM-UPF), Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain), Member of the Scientific Board of the Institute for Minority Rights.

What’s the difference between refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants? How many asylum seekers come to South Tyrol? Why don’t they work? Why do so many refugees have smartphones? With an increasing number of asylum seekers arriving in, or travelling through South Tyrol, questions such as these have become part of everyday conversations, TV debates, and Facebook posts. And often, the answers given are misinformed, skewed by politics, or plain wrong, contributing to prejudice and intolerance against asylum seekers and refugees. While social media frequently suggests a huge influx of refugees into the region, the actual numbers paint a different picture.Approximately 150 people daily, or 43,800 throughout 2015 according to representatives of the local government, travel through South Tyrol on their journey from the South to Western or Northern Europe, changing trains in Bozen/Bolzano, the capital of South Tyrol, or Brenner / Brennero on the Italian-Austrian border.But few asylum seekers actually apply for asylum in South Tyrol: currently, no more than 900 asylum seekers live here (a mere 0.17% of the total population). Their number is based on a national quota calculated on the basis of a region’s population, according to which South Tyrol hosts 0.9% of people seeking asylum in Italy. In comparison, across the border in Austria, North Tyrol hosts almost 5000 asylum seekers (0.69%). Most of the asylum seekers in South Tyrol come from Central Africa (Mali, Senegal, Nigeria and Ghana) or Asia (Irak, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan) and live in one of the 14 residences run by local NGOs contracted by the provincial administration. As these residences are distributed across the whole territory of South Tyrol and located in villages and towns, informing the local population and raising their awareness about asylum seekers

and refugees is a central step in facilitating their inclusion in local society.The Institute for Minority Rights, in collaboration with the Autonomous Province of Bolzano/Bozen (Italy), thus decided to create a brochure titled “Asylum seekers and refugees in South Tyrol” with the aim to dispel prejudice and provide up-to-date, reliable information to South Tyroleans.

The brochure was presented to the public on December 21, 2015 by the director of the provincial department for social affairs Luca Critelli and Researcher Johanna Mitterhofer at EURAC, and can be downloaded at http://www.eurac.edu/en/research/autonomies/minrig/publications/Documents/12-18-Broschuere_A4-DE-DEF.pdf (German) or http://www.eurac.edu/en/research/autonomies/minrig/publications/Documents/12-18-Broschuere_A4-IT-DEF.pdf (Italian).

To further involve the public in informed discussions on the topic, the initiative “#AskEURAC – refugees” encouraged people to submit their questions about refugees and asylum seekers on Facebook, answered by Researcher Johanna Mitterhofer in a short video clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTvUosA1hQ8).

Johanna Mitterhofer, Lisa Ellemunter Researcher, Institute for Minority [email protected]@eurac.edu


02 Once more: The Brenner Pass – Uniting or Separating Italy and Austria? „Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the Europregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino“, a follow up project from the finalists of the Euregio Young Researcher‘s Award 2015

Table 1: Asylum Seekers in der Euroregion “Tyrol – South Tyrol – Trentino“ (01.12.2015).

The Euroregion Tyrol - South Tyrol - Trentino was jointly created by its three constitutive entities in 1998 to overcome the border between Italy and Austria and re-unite the territories and societies which had formed the pre-world-war county of Tyrol. The Brenner Pass, the northern-most border crossing between Italy and Austria, had by that time become an invisible border due to the Schengen system, as it had lost its separating function. The creation of the Euroregion was celebrated north and south of the Brenner Pass as successful cross-border collaboration, which could also contribute to the re-emergence of a common historical Tyrolean identity. However, since the end of 2014, the Brenner Pass has been slowly becoming a checkpoint and barrier again, which hinders the increased movement of refugees and asylum seekers on their way through Italy towards the North. In early February 2016, the Austrian foreign

minister informed Italy about Austria’s intentions to build a fence and re-introduce border controls between the two states to limit the entrance of refugees into Austria. This announcement provoked strong reactions amongst the political and economic elite as well as the general public north and south of the border, and challenges the Euroregion’s role in cross-border cooperation and as a bridge between the two states. On December 1st 2015, 6780 asylum seekers resided in the Euroregion. Although a trilateral co-operation between the Italian, Austrian and German police was responsible for the monitoring and correct implementation of the Dublin III regulations, the Austrian administration calculated that around 200-300 persons continued to cross the Brenner Pass every day throughout the winter months. This number will likely increase to 300-600 throughout the summer months. Table 1 gives an overview on the distribution of resident asylum seekers in the Euroregion. A new research project, funded by the Euroregion “Tyrol – South Tyrol – Trentino” and composed of four of the six finalists of the Euroregion’s Young Researcher’s award 2015 (http://www.europaregion.info/de/euregio-jungforscherinnen-preis.asp), is monitoring and will evaluate the accommodation and management of asylum seekers in the Euroregion. The project will evaluate the legal framework of the Euroregion, the capacities and legal powers that both the single entities as well as the overarching cross-border structure have, and will analyse the institutional contacts between the three entities of the Euroregion especially the “Euregio Task Force on refugee-management”, which was created in November 2015 to develop a common management of the refugee situation. Finally, the project will compare the accommodation of asylum seekers in selected municipalities and highlight commonalities and differences between the three entities. EURAC IMR’s Verena Wisthaler and Gracy Pelacani from University of Trento, who both won the Euregio Young Researcher’s award 2015, will study the legal framework and the institutional cooperation, while Claudia Lintner (Free University of Bozen/Bolzano) and Manuela Luisa Meusburger (Management Center Innsbruck) will compare accommodation centres and the settlement and integration of asylum seekers between the three entities. Updates on the project can be found on the Euroregion’s homepage (http://w w w.eu ropa reg ion . in fo/de /eu reg io -jungforscherinnen-preis-2015.asp).

Verena Wisthaler Researcher, Institute for Minority [email protected]

Source: www.sagen.at


European Yearbook of Minority Issues (EYMI) is a critical and timely review of con-temporary developments in minority-majority relations in Europe.

European Diversity and Autonomy Papers (EDAP) is a high-quality online series of working papers that contribute to the theo-retical development and empirical explora-tion of various approaches to the growing reality of diversity embedded within the Eu-ropean Union.

03 Summer School 2016 „Integration/Disintegration“20 June - 1 July 2016

Bozen/Bolzano (I) and Müstair

(Switzerland)

Since 1999, the Institute for Minority Rights has been organizing a two-week long Summer School on the topics of Human Rights, Minorities and Diversity Management. The international Summer School attracts students and practitioners from all over the world, offering them a platform to discuss current topics in the field of diversity management with experts from inside and outside of academia.This year’s Summer School explores the theme of Integration/Disintegration through seminars and workshops focusing on a wide range of topics, from minority rights, migrant integration and right-wing extremism to direct democracy, the right to self-determination. Encounters with South Tyrolean politicians and a visit to a primary school in Switzerland will provide opportunities to experience local approaches to minority protection and diversity governance.The Summer School is organized by the Institute for Minority Rights of the European Academy Bozen/Bolzano (EURAC) in co-operation with the foundation Convivenza, Middlesex University, School of Law, London and the University of Graz, Austria. Online application: www.eurac.edu/summerschool

Application Deadline: 31 March 2016

04 Special issue on civic integration policies in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

From 29 March–2 April 2015, Stephen Larin participated in an intensive European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) workshop titled “The Civic Turn in European Immigrant Integration Policies”, in Warsaw, Poland. Two special journal issues are now in development based on the proceedings. The first, which has been accepted by Comparative Migration Studies, addresses the politics of civic integration in Scandinavia, and is being edited by Professor Per Mouritsen (Aarhus University, Denmark), Professor Karin Borevi (Södertörn University, Sweden), and Kristian Jensen (Aarhus). The second, edited by Per Mouritsen and Stephen Larin, has been accepted by the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and deals with how to conceptualize and normatively evaluate civic integration policies, a subject that has not received significant attention in the past.Mouritsen and Larin’s special issue, titled “The Civic Turn in European Immigrant Integration Policies” after the workshop, will include an introduction and individual articles written by the two editors, as well as articles from four other authors: Paula Falci (University of Trento), Gina Gustavsson (Uppsala University), Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos (University of Toronto) and Tamar de Waal (University of Amsterdam). Civic integration policies have attracted significant

academic attention, and a literature has grown around the topic over the past decade. Most of the analysis has been solely empirical, with sociologists and political scientists cataloguing, comparing and explaining its characteristics across cases, and legal scholars focusing on civic integration policy’s consistency with European Union and international law. Few authors, however, have focused on the conceptual or normative dimensions of civic integration policies—what kinds of policy are they, and are they desirable? To be sure, almost everyone who writes about civic integration defines it, usually against multiculturalism, and many have opined on its desirability. With the notable exceptions of Christian Joppke and a few others, however, hardly anyone has engaged with these dimensions of civic integration policy in a sustained manner. The purpose of this special issue is to help correct this situation. The editors expect to submit the full issue for final review by the end of the summer.

Stephen LarinSenior Researcher, Institute for Minority [email protected]

05 Socio-Economic Equality and Political Participation of Indigenous Peoples


Peruvian indigenous dancers at the parade in Cusco by Mariusz Prusaczyk

Indigenous peoples continue to face both socio-economic inequality and a lack of political participation in many (if not all) parts of the world. In particular, the rush to natural resources, the new policies of neo-extractivism, and the permanent discourse on “development and progress” hinder fair access to socio-economic resources for indigenous peoples. Additionally, few know about the effects and the impacts of the financial crisis on social and economic policies vis-à-vis indigenous peoples. This will therefore be the core theme of the upcoming Seventh Multidisciplinary Meeting on Indigenous Peoples of the homonymous network EMPI (redempi.blogspot.com.it), scheduled for 12-13 May 2016. The aim of this seventh edition is to facilitate a multidisciplinary debate on the effects and the impacts of economic development and crisis on indigenous peoples in different parts of the world; the role of these economic phenomena in generating or multiplying existing inequalities, or in fuelling potential social conflicts; and forms of indigenous organization and resistance. This edition is organized by the University of Milan (Italy), together with the Institute for Minority Rights (IMR), the Instituto de Derechos Humanos Pedro Arrupe of the University of Deusto (Spain), and the University “La Sapienza” of Rom (Italy), with the cooperation of a number of other universities (University of Ghent, Belgium; Universities of Salamanca and Girona, Spain; Universidad César Vallejo, Peru; Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Mexico; and the Karl-Franzens Universität Graz, Austria). Political participation of indigenous peoples—in its multiple dimensions—will be one of the topics addressed by the conference on Ethno-cultural Diversity and Human Rights organized by the

School of Law and Social Justice of the University of Liverpool on 3 May, and in which IMR will chair a session, as well as of a panel and a paper chaired and presented by Alexandra Tomaselli, Senior Researcher of IMR, at the prestigious XXXIV International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA at 50), this year hosted by the University of Pittsburgh and the City University of New York/Queens College in New York on 27-30 May 2016.

Alexandra Tomaselli Senior Researcher, Institute for Minority Rights [email protected]

06 South Tyrol’s Autonomy Convention successfully begins


Large sections of the Second Autonomy Statute of 1972 need to be updated in order to properly address current issues and challenges at the local (e.g. education policies, cross-border cooperation), regional (e.g. the role of the region and the role of municipalities), national (e.g. financial autonomy and the future of regions having special statutes within Italy) and EU (e.g. Europeanization effects on governance and South Tyrol as part of the Alpine Macro-region) levels. Recognizing that any alteration of the Autonomy Statute is likely to be controversial and thus necessitates the participation of the citizens, the provincial Council has adopted provincial law no. 3/2015, establishing a consultative participatory process called the “Convention for the Revision of the Autonomy Statute”.In January 2016, the Convention began with nine “Open Space” public discussion events across South Tyrol. In more than 200 working groups, nearly 2000 citizens elaborated ideas and proposals on the future of living together and self-government in South Tyrol. Topics such as self-determination, the transfer of further competences from the central to the provincial level, the monolingual and multilingual school systems, the Austrian-Italian Euroregion ‘Tyrol – South Tyrol – Trentino’, and social

issues were discussed—often with controversy. The minutes of the working groups, moderated and self-organized by the participants themselves, are available online at www.konvent.bz.it.By March 6, 1829 people had registered to participate in the Forum of 100, which will complement the work of the Convention of 33, the Autonomy Convention’s main body that includes politicians, stakeholders, legal experts and eight citizens from the Forum of 100. The members of the Forum of 100 were selected from the 1829 volunteers using a stratified random sampling method, which took into account language, age, and gender (census 2011). From April 2016 onwards, both bodies will meet regularly over a twelve-month period.The researchers of the Institutes for Minority Rights and Studies on Federalism and Regionalism support the Convention’s work scientifically with their expertise in autonomy studies, minority protection, institutional innovation, and participatory democracy.

Marc Röggla, Elisabeth Alber, Vera Ohnewein Researchers, Institute for Minority Rights, Institute for Studies on Federalism and Regionalism [email protected]

The outcome of the registration to the Forum of 100, classified by gender, age and language groups.

The Team of the Open Space Events, here at EURAC.

REGISTRATION FORUM OF 100 – GENDER

REGISTRATION FORUM OF 100 – AGE

REGISTRATION FORUM OF 100 – LANGUAGE GROUPS

07 Publications


Alexandra Tomaselli. Indigenous Peoples and their Right to Politi-cal Participation. International Law Standards and their Application in Latin America (Nomos, Baden-Baden, 2016)UN bodies have increasingly emphasized the need to improve the political participation of indigenous peoples. Indeed, indigenous peoples face many obstacles to having a guaranteed right to political participation in the decision making-processes both at State and local level. Apart from the (individual) human rights, no international instrument explicitly recognizes this right for Indigenous Peoples. In the frame of indigenous rights, however, a proposal regarding the political rights of indigenous peoples requires a discussion of indigenous self-determination. Likewise, the right to self-determination of indigenous peoples implies an examination of their right to autonomy/self-government. Against this background, this book proposes a composite right to political participation of indigenous peoples, which includes participation in decision-making bodies, consultation, free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and autonomy/self-government with traditional institutions. Moreover, the book identifies its recognition in international human and indigenous rights law, and explores its application in two apparently divergent—but substantially more similar than expected—case studies in Latin America, namely Bolivia and Chile.

For the last few years, the EU has been experiencing a deep and prolonged institutional crisis. This crisis has blinded many observers from being able to see how and in what form European integration has managed in a successful way to connect the different parts of Europe with the whole over the last few decades. The book is firstly aimed at showing how the European mechanism of integration of diversity in unity functions and why it has been so successful in many policy areas. Equally importantly, the book argues that at its core the current crisis is a cognitive problem. In order to recognize the institutional achievements as a positive common European experience, the general perception of “Unity in diversity” among Europeans has to be widened. A new conceptual figure or interpretative scheme is needed for two reasons: first, in order to see how unity and diversity has already been dynamically harmonized in a directly recognizable way, and second, in order to provide a tool that creates further harmonization and enhances popular legitimacy for further European integration and convergence. In doing that, the book proposes Nicholas of Cusa’s (1401-1464) concept of spiritus conexionis.

Rautz, Günther. (Hrsg.) Nicolaus Cusanus‘ Denken als theo-retische Grundlage zu Fragen der Europäischen Integration, in Stiftung Bozner Schlösser, Nicolaus Cusanus – Ein unver-standenes Genie in Tirol, Runkelsteiner Schriften zur Kulturge-schichte Nr. 9, Bozen 2016, Athesia, ISBN: 9 788868 391751

08 Books

Carlà, Andrea. “Societal Security in South Tyrol – a model to deal with ethnic conflicts,” in European Yearbook of Minority Issues, Vol. 12, 2013 (2016).

Constantin, Sergiu. “Linguistic Rights of National Minorities in Romania: Between Law in the Books and Law in Practice”, in Elżbieta Kuzborska (ed.) Integration and Exclusion. Linguistic rights of national minorities in Europe, The Association of Polish Academics in Lithuania, Vilnius, 2015.

Engl, Alice. “Bridging borders through institution-building: the EGTC as a facilitator of institutional integration in cross-border regions”, Regional & Federal Studies 2016, DOI:10.1080/13597566.2016.1158164.

Röggla, Marc/Alber, Elisabeth. “Language Rights in Italy: The Case of South Tyrol”, in Elżbieta Kuzborska (ed.) Integration and Exclusion. Linguistic rights of national minorities in Europe, The Association of Polish Academics in Lithuania, Vilnius, 2015.

Tomaselli Alexandra, “Exploring Indigenous Self‐governments and Forms of Autonomies”, in Corinne Lennox and Damien Short (eds.), Handbook of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, Routledge, London, New York, 2016, pp.83-100, https://www.routledge.com/products/9781857436419.

Wisthaler, Verena, “Politische Partizipation von Personen mit Migrationshintergrund in den Südtiroler Gemeinden”, in: Engl, Alice; Pallaver Günther; Alber, Elisabeth (eds.), Politika 2016, Nomos, Baden-Baden (forthcoming 2016).

EURACInstitute for Minority RightsViale Druso, 1/Drususallee 1 39100 Bolzano/Bozen – ItalyTel. +39 0471 055 222 Fax +39 0471 055 [email protected]


Upcoming Events of the Institute for Minority Rights

22-23 April 2016 „Polis Europe“, conference organized jointly with the Euregio Tyrol – South Tyrol – Trentino“, Schloss Prösels, Völs am Schlern/ Fiè allo Sciliar

17-19 May 2016A Jewish- Arabian Delegation from Israel visits the Institute for Minority Rights

16-19 June 2016Midas General Assembly Meeting in Bozen/Bolzano

18-26 June 2016„Europeada“ – European football championship of the autochthonous national minorities – South Tyrol

22-25 June 2016Midas Study Visit in Pustertal/Val Pusteria – South Tyrol

20 June 2016 – 01 July 2016Summer School on Human Rights, Minorities and Diversity Management, Bozen/Bolzano (I) and Canton of Müstair (Switzerland)

For further information, write to [email protected].