Analysis Report Pilot Territories Deliverable T1.4.1
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Analysis Report Pilot Territories Deliverable T1.4.1 Organisation(s) Eurac Research Authors Miriam Weiß Delivery date December 2018 Status Final Distribution level Public 2 Contents 1. Summary ............................................................................................................. 4 2. Introduction and theoretical background ............................................................. 4 3. Approach and research area ............................................................................... 5 3.1. Interview guidelines and questionnaire .................................................... 5 3.2. Brief profiles of the pilot territories ............................................................ 6 4. Snapshot from the pilot territories ....................................................................... 8 4.1. Common challenges ................................................................................. 8 4.2. Range of established welcoming and integration services ..................... 12 4.2.1. Service offered or facilitated by municipalities ............................ 12 4.2.2. Services offered by other actors ................................................. 13 4.3. Involvement of staff ................................................................................ 15 4.4. Future needs and potential for improvement .......................................... 16 5. Success stories and limitations ......................................................................... 19 5.1. Stories of success .................................................................................. 19 5.2. Lessons learned ..................................................................................... 19 6. Conclusions and outlook ................................................................................... 20 Related links.............................................................................................................. 21 Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 22 Annex ........................................................................................................................ 23 3 1. Summary This report gives an insight into the current situation on welcoming culture in selected territories across the Alps. Planned at the beginning of the PlurAlps project, this report helps to get an impression of where the different territories stand in terms of welcoming culture. It presents common challenges that municipalities face when new inhabitants come to town and the services they have implemented to address these challenges. Based on input received from the selected territories, an overview is also given on how many staff members deal with the topic of integration and migration and how many hours they spend on welcoming and integration matters. The report provides insight into the range of welcoming and integration services which on one hand are already offered in the municipalities, and on the other, which are additionally needed and planned to be implemented (within WP T3 several offers and services are tested). It is also an attempt to identify the margins of improvement regarding the lack or inefficiency of offers and services and answer the following questions: which services were more, which were less successful? Which limitations have been experienced? 2. Introduction and theoretical background The welcoming and integration of newcomers usually takes place in the local context; that is in schools, neighborhoods or town quarters, at public events, in free time as well as at the workplace but also in the town hall and at the administrative service counters (e.g. to register in the municipality, to register for school, to sign up for healthcare). As important and typical point of contact for both migrants and locals, municipalities (referred to as community but also referred to as administrative unit) have gained relevance over the last decades, in which international migration has increased (cf. Castles & Miller, 2003). In municipalities of some European states, this has led to an increased pressure in delivering services in activity fields like labour market, housing and education (cf. Kössler 2014, Castles & Miller 2003). Municipalities’ competences arise from the legal framework and related financial means as established in the national, regional or federal law. Commonly, they are locally responsible for housing, town planning, culture and leisure, as well as social affairs, healthcare and education; action fields that are all relevant for the cross- sectoral topic of integration (cf. Kössler 2014). Given this implicit responsibility (by law), municipalities assume a general responsibility for all citizens however, not exclusively for locals but neither explicitly-specifically for migrants (cf. Kössler 2014, Lynch & Simon 2003). Furthermore, regarding funding, it is observed that financial means commonly tend to fall behind the assigned municipal responsibilities for integration (cf. Steytler 2010, Kössler 2014). Since integration is not a stand-alone policy field but incorporated part of general budgets for health, social affairs, etc., the part spent on integration is often diminished in times of shortage of funds (cf. Kössler 2014, cf. Mitterhofer et al. 2016). Municipalities, nevertheless, remain a central actor in upholding and providing services relating foremost to the socio-economic and legal-political integration of newcomers1, particularly in the phase of first orientation in a new place but also in the phase of long-term settlement of newcomers (see Figure 1; BAMF, 2011). On the other side, integration is not a matter of administrations alone but one of interaction among 1 Entzinger (2000) defines three dimensions of integration: socio-economic, legal-political and cultural- religious. 4 individuals, organized groups and institutions on the part of newcomers and the receiving society (Penninx & Garcés-Mascareñas 2016). Figure 1: Welcoming Culture and Recognizing Culture in different phases of the immigration process (BAMF 2011, Aumüller & Gesemann 2014, pp. 55) Against this background, at the beginning of the PlurAlps project, there was the interest to get an overview of how the pilot territories are faring in terms of welcoming culture and what are possible paths of development for improvement. Are municipalities confronted with similar challenges and how are they overcome? Which services do municipalities themselves offer? Which are present on the territory that are offered by other actors? What is locally required to develop new or upgrade existing services to improve the overall welcoming of newcomers? This gives the possibility to learn from each other’s experiences as well as strengthening the transnational exchange and cooperation within the PlurAlps project. First, we introduce the approach to analyzing the pilot territories and give an overview of the research area that is constituted by the PlurAlps pilot territories. Section 4 gives a comprehensive snapshot from the pilot territories, providing insight into common challenges, the range of established welcoming/integration services, the involvement of staff and potential for improvement and future needs. A section on success stories and lessons learned ensues. The report closes with conclusions and an outlook. 3. Approach and research area 3.1. Interview guidelines and questionnaire A mixed method approach was adapted to study the state of affairs in 13 pilot territories regarding welcoming services. A standardized questionnaire with open-ended and closed questions (fixed-response) was developed to gather information and data relevant for this report. The questionnaire consisted in two parts (see Annex). Part I investigated the range of municipal services offered in the pilot municipalities, the involvement of other actors, the financing of the services, and the municipal staff working on integration issues. It also asked which municipal activities had proven to be more and which less successful. Part II explored the municipal future needs for services that would help addressing the needs of newcomers. Based on interviews in the project’s pilot municipalities/regions, the PlurAlps partner institutions filled in the questionnaires for 12 of 13 territories between September 2017 and June 2018 in cooperation with local partners. 5 3.2. Brief profiles of the pilot territories Figure 2 provides an overview map of the 13 pilot regions. It shows also three French territories (Communauté de communes du Massif du Vercours, Saint Martin d’Hères, Communauté de communes du Trièves) for which the information was not provided. Figure 2: Map of the PlurAlps pilot regions (Laner P, Dalla Torre C, 2018) Bezau is a small municipality located in the Bregenzerwald region, in the state of Vorarlberg, in the western part of Austria. Bezau has a population of 2.003 inhabitants (2018), of which 17% have a foreign nationality. Most of the foreign inhabitants come from Turkey. Comunità di Valle della Val di Non is one of the biggest districts of the province of Trentino in Italy. It is located in the northwestern part of the province. In Val di Non live 39.420 people. The percentage of foreign inhabitants is 9% and the biggest group of foreign inhabitants have Romanian citizenship. Engelberg is a tourist municipality in the half canton of Obwalden, Switzerland. Engelberg has a population of 4.430 inhabitants (2018), whose 26% has foreign