Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities European Country Cases and Debates (NEW UPDATE)

Immigrants and ethnic minorities seem to be a common victim of social exclusion and discrimination in the labour market as well as in other spheres of life. European and national governments face a serious challenge with these issues and problems. Member States have their own national policy for the fight against discrimination, immigration or integration.

Different situations from different Member States:

The research is in particular focused on the labour market and social exclusion risks of immigrants and Roma. The focus is especially on the Roma because this group is a key ethnic minority in the European Union. The research provides an overview of the latest immigration or minority policies and describes and comments some ongoing debates on the topic. It is a report on ‘the state if the art’ of research, data sources and policies in European contexts. The research illustrates different situations from five Member States:

• Spain: can be considered as a ‘new immigration country’. Which means that immigration is rather new for Spain but increased dramatically the past years. Spain is besides this presently the main ‘entrance gate’ to the European Union;
• Finland: has an Nordic welfare model in social policy and has changed form a long-time emigration into an immigration country. Immigration flows however are still rather modest;
• Hungary and Slovakia: are central European countries where the presence of the Roma is significantly. For these countries it is an challenge to develop an integrative employment policy and welfare state;
• Romania: has even an stronger challenge in comparison to Hungary and Slovakia, as it hosts a quarter to a third of European Roma population.
  
  

For each of the above mentioned countries the situation of the Roma in the national labour market and welfare system are analyzed. The possibility to find tendencies towards social integration, assimilation, segregation or exclusion of immigrants or ethnic minorities is assessed in this research.