FOI social policy and Human Resources Working Group member Emanuel Said, represented the Federation at a conference, which was held in September and organised by the European Economic and Social Committee (ESC) in Brussels.

The conference provided a platform for exchange of information and knowledge relating to the integration of immigrants across EU member states and related to the three pillars of social integration:

¤ Employment and Labour Relations

¤ Secure integration policies and divergences between EU member states;

¤ Rights and obligations of immigrants and refugees: citizenship and political rights.

Various speakers provided differing viewpoints on the different stakeholders and countries in dealing with the social integration of immigrants and refugees.

The Maltese delegate found out that, despite the work that has been done by European institutions, policies remain discordant across EU member states who are, as yet, seeking complete harmonisation in the processes involved in integrating immigrants.

More specifically, immigration demands a long term solution that has to be judged in the context of aging workforces, unsustainable retirement benefit systems and a plethora of other problems that arise out of an aging population - an issue that characterises developed economies.

Indeed, some conference speakers called for policies that encourage participation of immigrants equally as other citizens. Yet immigrants face toughening conditions for integration in the form of more difficult access to employment, language barriers, social security and welfare.

In recognising these difficulties, the conference suggested a shared and common European approach to immigration. These solutions require significant financial resources to support social integration of immigrants. The conference also concluded that rigidities in respect of immigrants must ease if the EU is to attract new resources.