European Continental Assembly of June 2001 
Organised at the initiative of 
The Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World

•	Framework text of the topic  “Migrations and multicultural citizenship”
Initial document for launching the debate of the European electronic forum

•	Author: Cyril Kretzschmar

•	Date of writing: September 2000

•	Topic co-ordinators: Cyril Kretzschmar and Roger Winterhalter

The time is ripe in Europe for debate on citizenship, with the aim expressed by many to change from European construction based on monetary and economic union to one based on human beings. The nature of the current challenges linked to migrations and intercultural issues requires a change of direction. "It is when a policy is successful that it needs changing, since it is the policy itself that has changed the context from which it sprang". At present, there has never been so much creation of wealth in Europe, though its distribution has never been so unequal between rich and poor countries around the world, and even within rich countries in which social exclusion has become massive and long term. 

1. The current situation and questions on European construction

For the last fifty years, Franco-German reconciliation has been the cornerstone of European construction, as part of a project more political than economic. Instigated by Schuman and Monnet on humanist, Christian and social principles, European construction has been a guiding force for pacific and co-operative relations between the countries of Western Europe, little by little bringing their peoples to consider a common destiny marked by a federalist vision. 

-	However, Europe is not the result of a democratic process involving citizens, but that of the “fathers of Europe”, enlightened political players that knew how to combine politics with economics and then progressively influence public opinion to accept their project. A certain crisis in politics has led a large proportion of the populations of Western Europe to suspect democracy and the “Eurocrats”, to the point of calling into question this project's legitimacy. Although the idea of Europe appears to have won acceptance from most of the peoples of the member states, a growing number claim a more democratic conception of European construction. However, no way has yet been found to mobilise opinion sufficiently to take action and guarantee respect for the general interest. 

The institutional somersaults of the European Commission confronted by the European Parliament, which is trying to forge a political existence, such as its attempts to open debates at the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference at Nice at the end of 2000, demonstrate the slowness of democratisation in Europe. Large numbers of the electorates of most of the member states abstain at elections and they remain heavily focused on national and local elections. Furthermore, with the perspectives of enlargement beyond the Union’s existing 15 members, the founding works of Cassin in the Council of Europe on the European Convention of Human Rights in 1950 have been forgotten rather too hastily. 

In parallel with the emergence of more or less formal networks of Non-Governmental Organisations at world level (in particular militating against the World Trade Organisation), a similar movement is occurring in Europe to demand that citizens be represented in European authorities. This expresses the desire for more control over multinational ‘governance’ by citizens; however, there is also the threat manifested by the power of new lobbies without any political legitimacy or social representiveness. The mobilisation of the media and the use of the Internet have become the major assets of a ‘cyberdemocracy’, which cannot, however, be more democratic than Europe’s founding fathers whose legitimacy stemmed from the fact they were elected.

-	It is essentially western, Christian and social-liberal, founded in the common political history of France, Germany, Italy and the other twelve member states. Faced with the perspectives of European enlargement to embrace countries such as Turkey and the nations of the former Eastern Bloc, this ideological and spiritual foundation is being shaken radically. The number of candidates for membership requires the formulation of new rules for European institutions. However, a great deal of openness is required to accept cultures as different as those from Islamic and former communist countries: up to now, Europe has been built on the basis of similarity rather than dissimilarity, where cultural "convergence criteria" have been applied just as much as economic criteria. 

The process of enlargement itself merits interrogation. Beyond "objective" points such as territorial continuity and the minimum economic and political conditions required from candidate states, what principles now govern the enlargement process? Why are the Czech Republic and the Baltic States more acceptable candidates than Algeria or Turkey? Why give priority to Eastern Europe rather than the Mediterranean basin? Do human rights and democracy, associated with the convergence criteria of Maastricht, represent the only minimum threshold for enlargement, vis-à-vis countries that worry more than attract us?

On the other hand, the first steps towards a European civil society, and even a European civilisation owe a great deal to the militants and martyrs from the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. More major advances in democracy have occurred in the East than in the West, and the Helsinki agreements and the fall of the Berlin wall were events that had a greater impact at the turn of the century than the Maastricht Treaty or the advent of the Euro. The differences in living standards and development in Europe are already great and will increase with the membership of new countries. Europe should show its solidarity to these new countries, even more so than it has done to Ireland and Portugal, by increasing the community budget devoted to the development of areas to the south and east of Europe.

In what way are the populations of the candidate states, and those of member states, asked to express their opinions on these questions? What limits should be given to regional structures and for what purpose. On what main ideological and spiritual systems should they be based? Human rights, free trade, humanism, etc.?  What mechanisms are needed to achieve transnational solidarity?

-	It has created a single federation of European citizens, but it must open out to multiculturalism.

The presumed linguistic, religious, cultural and historic homogeniety of citizens belonging to the same ethnic group and living in the same territory of a state, considered as the basic condition of belonging to a nation and the basis of social integration in European national states, is now undergoing rapid change, tending towards multiculturalism. This transformation has several sources among which the most obvious and most discussed is immigration. The considerable influx into Europe within a short space of time of persons from countries with very different cultures, strong cultural identities and histories marked by colonialism has changed the context considerably.

Emphasis must also be given to other aspects of cultural differentiation, endogenous to the original culture, that stem more from evolving lifestyles. The marked decline of religion in peoples' lives following the secularisation of European societies, the considerable change in relationships between the sexes, the raising of sexual taboos, different attitudes vis-à-vis work, etc., lead to increasingly diversified perceptions of human existence and behaviours. Pressure groups and very different lifestyles come into conflict with traditional thinking in attempts to gain recognition: equal opportunities for women, recognition of homosexuality, acceptance of signs of religious and community membership by secular law, struggles against all kinds of discrimination and so forth.

Multiculturalism requires changes in the national laws of European states as well as changes in international law. For citizens to be treated equally, the law must respect the unique identity of each individual and permit the assertion of collective visions of the world and different lifestyles.

-	It is based on a stable world with a static view of populations that are in fact  in movement. The prevailing definition of Europe was conceived during the baby boom, though Europe is now suffering from an acute demographic deficit. Its fertility rates are much lower than the minimum threshold for replacing generation by generation, therefore it will need immigration to fill in the gaps left in its age structure. Despite the probable stabilisation of the world's population (about 10 billion at the end of the 21st century), the considerable demographic growth of Asia (1.2 to 1.4 billion in both China and India) and Africa (2.5 to 3 billion) will have to be absorbed somehow. 

Movements of population have been increasing exponentially over the last ten years: the High Commission for Refugees listed over 13 million refugees in 1997 in comparison to 2.5 million in 1975. Despite the fact that Europe will suffer from a major demographic deficit, its doors close ever tighter against immigration. 4.5 million of these refugees live in Africa and Asia, whereas Europe only has 3.2 million. Official applications for asylum have been decreasing constantly since 1992, and the implementation of the Schengen Treaty, which eliminates border controls within the European Union but reinforces its external borders, restricts possibilities of entry even further. The paradox of globalisation is that never before have so many goods flowed between Europe and the rest of the world, but never has protectionism aimed at restricting the movement of people been so strong. 

Today, it is not possible to consider questions on citizenship and democracy without ignoring the status of the immigrant citizen who is either settled or circulating in Europe. They are subject to the same obligations as the indigenous population, they are generally employed and thus contribute to GNP, and they pay taxes that in turn pay for public services. In return, however, what rights to citizenship are granted and what respect for identity?

2. Perspectives for commitment

What kind of Europe can be imagined for the 21st century while certain persons still speak of a Europe of motherlands, the standard bearer and shield of the Christian West? What kind of European citizenship can be invented between the global village open to all kinds of exchange, but basically rootless, and retreat into regional, ethnic and religious identities? 

To open this debate on the electronic forum, we would like to sketch out the major directions for the future of Europe confronted by what has been mentioned above. 

2.1 – Shared reformulation of Europe's values

As part of a constant process of building the European Union, and not as a predefined corpus, it is essential to formulate basic values capable of uniting peoples and nations who see Europe as theirs. The draft of the European Charter of Basic Rights to be discussed in Nice at the end of 2000 could be the foundation if it stimulates genuine and wide-ranging debate in society. Beyond the issue of rights, this charter should incorporate the question of the responsibility of each resident of the European Union and of Europe vis-à-vis the rest of the world. Otherwise there is a great risk that Europe will become increasingly a fortress besieged by growing tides of immigrants from other continents.

Freedom, solidarity, responsibility, tolerance, pluralism and active subsidiarity could be some of the values capable of refounding a European civilisation, drawing inspiration from the proposals made by the Alliance for world governance adapted to the challenges of the 21st century. Don't Europe's values, on a more basic level, spring from the will to define oneself via relations with the other and via the diversity of exchange?

2.2 – Building the European Union by diversity and exchange 

The diversity of cultures must be used to fuel the unity of values in the same way as political unity must go hand in hand with the recognition of the diversity of territories. Resolutely open to humanity and to all men and women, Europe must open its frontiers to immigration that will enrich it demographically, economically and culturally. The human development of Europe is linked to its increasing capacity to integrate new forms of more circular immigration. 

We still need to invent more tolerant and open intercultural relations, there where our fears and anxieties are strongest: fear of the other, of invasion, loss of identity, etc. This is probably where work on ideas concerning secularism, inner-being and spirituality will be of great use.

2.3 – Helping new regional communities to emerge

Rather than attempting to attract Caucasian and Baltic countries in search of stability and civil peace to a Western Europe, by dictating a political and cultural system as if it were an Eldorado of stability and growth, while completely ignoring the Mediterranean basin, wouldn't it be better to encourage the emergence of new regional groups and communities close to ours but different? This is the line taken by the proposal of world contracts for constituting multinational regions made by Riccardo Petrella, in the same way as the progressive constitution of a Latin-American group with Mercosur, or that of African unity, still to be found. This calls on Europe to contribute to the emergence of new communities of States while developing open and reciprocal relations with them.
The bankruptcy now afflicting the United Nations following the unexplained refusal of the great nations to provide sufficient finance to help this tool for world regulation, makes it necessary for regional groups already constituted politically, such as the United States, Europe and Japan to deal with this issue together. The ethical framework required for the construction of such regional groups is the same for individuals as it is for different levels of governance (territory, State, regional group and the world). This leads to thinking that building a new dimension of Europe could contribute to the emergence of other regional groups, thus paving the way to real world governance.

2.4 – For active citizenship at a European scale

Setting up democratic debate on a European scale is vital so that we can now approach issues such as  values, cultures, and society. The paths towards consolidating this debate have been dealt with in depth in the framework of an Alliance for a responsible, plural and united world: 

-	helping to form European opinions
-	formulating the conditions for this debate for civilisation
-	developing the use of new information and communication technologies 
-	exchanging and capitalising on experiences.

However, we also want to emphasise the development of individual and collective capacities for local action as one of the keys to citizenship. How can one be European where one finds oneself, in one's own behaviour, in one's attitude to others and in one's own inner being?