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EDICOLA / KIOSK | LADINBarcelona, 3rd of October 2005
The VI Assembly of the Conference of Stateless
Nations of Europe (CONSEU), after examining and discussing for
three days about the topic "New immigration and stateless nations
in Europe: challenges and solutions" has drafted the following
considerations:
1) Even though migration flows constitute a traditional
phenomenon in the European continent, the causes that provoke
them are new. Nowadays, the number of immigrants arriving to
Europe is increasing considerably due to three major reasons.
Firstly because the differences between the North and the South
have never been so deep. Secondly, because of the frantic
exploitation of the resources carried out by the Northern
countries in the areas where immigrants comes from. And in the
third place due to the globalisation of communications and
information.
2) This situation is not being counterbalanced by effective
European cooperation policies with appropriate means and
resources and able to foster a sustainable economical and social
development in the immigrant's countries of origin. Moreover,
when arriving to Europe, the immigrants' conditions worsen
because they face accommodation difficulties and need to
regularize their working status –even though the working
market is actually demanding more labour hand.
3) In this context, those who ultimately suffer the causes and
consequences of emigration are members of excluded and persecuted
peoples in their native territories for their belonging to
linguistic and cultural minoritised communities. In general
terms, these people are not received in the new countries as
members of downtrodden peoples deserving special attention but as
merely citizens of the states that keep them oppressed and, in
the best of cases, as victims of restrictive immigration laws
instead of full citizens with full rights.
Consequently, the participants of the VI Assembly of the
CONSEU:
1) Demand, in accordance with articles 15-18 of the Universal
Declaration of the Collective Rights of Peoples (which
constitutes the basic doctrine of the CONSEU), respect for the
rights of peoples and individuals, specially those excluded both
for their poverty and for the lack of recognition of their rights
as a distinctive people.
2) Commit ourselves to collaborate in projects aiming at
improving the socio-economic conditions of the migrant's
countries.
3) Denounce the stateless nations' lack of political power to
implement policies regarding the migration phenomenon or to
manage immigration itself, given the fact that the States keep
for themselves full power to legislate, regardless of the
guidelines drawn by the European institutions.
In order to face the challenges of migration, which are also
affecting us, the participants of the CONSEU, being as we are
citizens of stateless nations, have concluded that:
1) If, in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, everyone has the right to a nationality and no one can be
denied the right to change it, this principle should also be
applied to immigrants. Their individual rights must be combined
with their right and duty to become members of the new community.
It is not about imposing integration or assimilation upon
immigrants; it is about inviting them to participate in a project
of collective life. It must be reminded, though, that this
participation will be a fact if the receiving members of the
society and the newcomers respect each other for what they are,
regardless of whether they are recognised at a state level or
not. The recognition of the immigrant for what he/she is
constitutes the fundamental basis for the newcomer to acknowledge
the receiving society for what it is.
2) The immigrant must have the right to contribute to the
enrichment and configuration of the collective life through their
countries' cultural knowledge They must also have the right to
vote in the elections that might affect him directly, a previous
step to fully participate in the new society's political
life.
3) The reciprocal respect between newcomers and receivers must be
favoured by the civil society, which should provide itself with
appropriate organisations to approach the immigrants and help
them to get documents of residence and work papers, healthcare,
accommodation, etc. Good living-standards would make their
adaptation faster and easier and would open the door to a real
cultural exchange, and at the same time would prevent the
formation of ghettoes.
4) Stateless nations, being as they are receivers of new
immigration, should have the political power to implement
policies through their public institutions. Immigrants, then,
could be received as members of distinctive peoples rather than
simply members of a determinate state.
5) Language plays a very important role in the life of the
community and is one of the key elements to foster the
relationship between receivers and newcomers. In the context of
the stateless nations:
a) The language of the nation must be a socialisation tool, a link amongst speakers of different languages and the common language of those who share a territory and want to build a community based on respect. Therefore, it must also be the language of education, institutional communications and new technologies.
b) Immigrants should be informed about the “real” country they have migrated to, what is the language and the culture of the territory. This is particularly important in stateless nations with languages minoritised by state policies. They should also be informed about the real causes of language fragmentation, impoverishment and minorisation.
c) Information programmes should be launched in order to make the newcomers see the need to contribute to the nation-building process through language. To do so, the members of the stateless nation must set a good example using the common language everywhere and without shifting to the most powerful.
d) Promoting the teaching and usage of the language is crucial. In this process, national institutions –if they exist-, social movements and civil society must play a very important role in making the endangered language more prestigious and counterbalance the power of the state language –which could be official or co-official in the national territory.
e) European institutions should distinguish between language policies to be implemented in minoritised communities and those addressed to groups of immigrants with different languages. This should be so because the indigenous languages are the result of individual and collective rights of people living in a territorial community, whereas the languages of the immigrants must be placed in the field of individual rights since the speakers are not living in the territory where the collective rights should be applied.
Finally, the participants of the VI Assembly agree to call for the VII Assembly by the end of 2006 under the theme "Proposals by stateless nations on the reform of the international organisations (UN and others)".