Europe from below: working group Human rights and Citizenship

Sarajevo, 6th April 2002
Foreword Our society is marked by a widespread sense of fear towards the others, towards those who are different from us, towards foreigners. This sense of fear grows and grows, fed also by media hype, and it is bringing about unscrupulous policies based on the manipulation of consent all over the European Union.
Particularly, we are facing the demonization of the islamic world, together with a tendency to justify widespread forms of violation of human rights. This is happening also in the EU and particularly towards foreigners, on the pretext of security and struggle against international terrorism.
This trend, which is totally against the fundamental values of european history and culture, has to be reversed. EU policy has to be revisited, by supporting human rights, democracy as the result of a real participation of citizens, by protecting social, religious, cultural and linguistic minorities.
Two topics have been specifically addressed:
1. enlargement of the EU towards eastern Europe
2. migration policies in Europe
1. Notwithstanding differnt opinions that have emerged with regards to the methodolgy to be adopted in order to tear down the “Schengen wall”, the whole group highlighted two main issues:
1.1 EU has to modify the yardstick with regards to its enlargement towards other european countries; parameters are based too much on economics and not enough on the respect of human rights. A major attention should be given to human rights.
1.2 Also with regards to domestic EU countries policies, human rights support has to be revisited and fortifyed, so that effective protection can be offered to those social groups and vulnerable categories whose rights are eventually easily violated or can’t be exercised in freedom and dignity.
1.3 European cultural heritage has to be effectively protected from the risks of general cultural standardization. Promotion of cultural exchange has to become a major social and political objective for the EU, acting on different levels; the educational aspect and the support to european citizens exchanges (not just from east to west but also vice versa) have been particularly highlighted. Those aspects can strengthen mutual knowledge.
2. EU policies on migratons and on the right to asylum should be based on:
2.1 Strict respect for the universality of fundamental human rights, without any sort of dangerous distinction between rights of citizens and right of migrants.
2.2 Combat the widespread idea of migrants as manpower or merchandise.
2.3 Specific protection measures for most vulnerable categories such as refugees, minors, women.
2.4 Refusal of any form of detention for asylum-seekers and any discriminatory form of detention for migrants based on different penal laws than those applied to citizens.
2.5 Implementation of migration policies providing with effective access to regular entry procedures into the EU; this would efficiently fight international trafficking and the consequent spread of clandestineness which is eventually fed by substantial unfeasibility of entry flows in all the EU countries;
2.6 Support to flexible measures such as “circular migration”, where people can easily move to/stay in another european country for study, work, training reasons etc. This would help the process of integration of eastern european countries into the EU.
Topics such as migration, protection of human rights, and rewiev of the european citizenship idea urge EU institutions to take up democracy and participation. This process of transformation has to be advocated and facilitated by associations and civil society organisations working within and outside the EU.