In May 2019, voters throughout Europe made themselves heard in the European Parliament elections. Voters’ decisions are likely to have a big impact on the EU’s overall approach to migration and migrant integration, with critical migration and integration-related matters still pending in the EU, including reform of the Common European Asylum System and negotiations for the EU’s next long-term budget for the 2021-2027 period.

Despite substantial declines in the number of new asylum seekers entering Europe, voters still considered immigration to be one of the most important topics in these elections, but politicians and political parties said relatively little in their campaigns about migration or what happens after people settle in the EU.

There are 38 million people living in EU countries who were born outside the EU, most of whom are long-term residents or naturalised EU citizens. But among these 38 million are also those who settled recently in the EU and are especially vulnerable when it comes to various dimensions of their livelihoods and well-being, such as employment, health and housing. This is especially the case for refugees.  Failing to pay attention to—and make real efforts for—the social and economic inclusion of migrants and refugees is therefore likely to have significant consequences for the economy and social cohesion, both at a European level and for individual Member States.

In this analysis, EWSI examines if and how national political parties discussed migrant and refugee integration in their programmes for the 2019 European Parliament elections.

• First, did national political parties talk at all about integration in their programmes?
• Second, if they talked about integration, what aspects of integration concerned them the most?

EWSI hopes to give an indication of how the new European Parliament might act on integration in the coming years.

• A slight majority of MEPs ran for election on a party programme that discusses migrant or refugee integration in its programme. A solid majority of MEPs would be supportive of greater EU measures to promote integration.
• The most popular integration-related topics, by far, relate to diversity and social cohesion, including topics related to discrimination.
• Numerous parties advocate for more EU funding for municipalities and regions when it comes to integration. Parties and MEPs from the main destination countries for asylum seekers are more likely to focus on budgetary matters than parties/MEPs overall.
• In countries with large immigrant populations, the parties are more likely to promote measures regarding Employment and Language.
• Parties do not seem to reflect how voters feel about the EU’s role when it comes to migrant integration, even in the context of the European elections.

EWSI examined the programmes/manifestos of national political parties for the 2019 European Parliament elections. The analysis looked only at the official programmes of political parties. This means that statements made to journalists or blog posts, among other types of documents or publications related to the elections, are not part of the analysis.

The EWSI Editorial Team combed through the European Parliament election programmes of all national political parties that won at least 1 MEP seat. Whenever the parties talked about migrant or refugee integration in their programmes, the Editorial Team classified the relevant statements as belonging to one or more of the thematic categories below. By tallying the number of parties that made statements in each thematic category, EWSI can analyse which topics were most popular among the parties.

Furthermore, by calculating how many MEPs each national political party will have in the 2019-2024 European Parliament, the analysis indicates how the new Parliament might act on integration-related matters over the next five years.

For further details, please see the Methodology page. 

There were 175 national political parties that won seats in the 2019 European Parliament elections. 156 parties published programmes for the elections, and out of these parties, 92 mention migrant and/or refugee integration in some respect in their programmes. These 92 parties account for 422 MEPs, which is 56% of the total number of MEPs in the European Parliament (751). Thus, the majority of MEPs ran for election on a programme that pays attention to migrant or refugee integration.

Perhaps the most notable trend in these elections was that the balance of power in the European Parliament became more diffuse, with the traditionally dominant centre-right (European People’s Party) and centre-left (Socialists & Democrats) blocs losing their majority. This shift is also relevant to migrant and refugee integration because the smaller political parties that typically fall outside these two largest parliamentary blocs are more likely to prioritise migrant integration in their programmes than larger parties.

For example, while five out of six (or 83%) elected parties from Portugal made proposals regarding migrant integration in their programmes, these parties collectively received only 71% of the country’s MEP seats. This is because the Social Democratic party of Portugal, with 6 MEP seats, does not directly discuss integration in its programme, while all the parties with only 1 or 2 MEP seats do cover the topic. Germany is another example, with its biggest party—the CDU-CSU coalition that won 29 MEP seats—not directly discussing integration in its electoral programme, while a slew of small parties all highlight some aspect of migrant integration.

The most popular topics, by far, relate to Diversity & Social Cohesion, which was mentioned by 55 parties with 259 MEPs. Included in this category are proposals and statements about discrimination against migrants, refugees and/or racial or ethnic minorities. However, while many parties make statements regarding diversity and anti-discrimination in their programmes, relatively few parties go one step further and state that tailored attention should be paid to specific vulnerable groups, such as women or LGBT migrants, refugees or asylum seekers. Yet research shows that migrants or refugees who face multiple discrimination—for example, migrant women—have significant needs that may not be adequately addressed by policies or measures intended for the migrant or refugee population overall. In the migration context, most political parties do not address intersectionality, even if they are keen to talk about diversity or discrimination.

The second most popular topic is the EU’s role in integration, mentioned by 28 political parties (with 95 MEPs). When they mention the EU in the context of integration, the parties often call for more EU funding, especially to support local level integration efforts. Employment is a close third, with 26 parties (93 MEPs) discussing the topic.

In examining the party programmes, it is clear that parties and MEPs make a strong connection between budget issues and local integration efforts, advocating for more funding for municipalities and regions in integration. In many cases, the parties and MEPs want the EU to provide more funding in this regard. This can be seen, for example, in Germany and Belgium.

The figures above include parties and MEPs from the Identity and Democracy (ID) and European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) political groups of the European Parliament. ECR and ID (successor of the Europe of Nations and Freedom group) both have high concentrations of MEPs who want to limit migration and tend to oppose the expansion of the EU’s role on migration and integration. For example, both ECR and ID’s predecessor voted overwhelmingly against the European Parliament’s 2016 resolution on the situation in the Mediterranean and the need for a holistic EU approach to migration.

After separating ID and ECR’s MEPs from the others, it becomes clear that ID and ECR’s MEPs focus mostly on two categories: 1) Welfare & Benefits and 2) Family Reunification, Permits and Naturalisation. They are virtually the only parties that mention Welfare & Benefits, generally calling for restriction of social benefits to migrants and refugees. Many of these parties want to reduce family reunification-based migration, but their MEPs are met by a similar number of MEPs from parties that want to facilitate family reunification. They also pay some attention to topics related to Diversity & Social Cohesion and Employment, but they hold a minority of viewpoints in these categories, and barely feature elsewhere.

Historically, Europe’s social democratic parties have promoted measures for the integration of migrants and refugees. However, trouble at the polls in recent years—often perceived to be the result of working class voters’ switch to populist, anti-immigration parties—has led some social democratic politicians to de-emphasise immigration in their campaigns or even take negative positions on immigration.

That said, the parties that belong to the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) in the European Parliament still place a greater emphasis on migrant and refugee integration in their programmes than most other parties. While S&D has 154 MEPs out of the total 751 MEPs (20.5%), S&D MEPs make up a disproportionately large share of the MEPs from parties that address migrant integration in their programmes. This is especially the case when it comes to discussing education and budgetary issues, where 64% and 53% of the MEPs, respectively, belong to S&D.

Only in the categories of Welfare & Benefits and Family Reunification, Permits and Naturalisation are S&D MEPs underrepresented. But as discussed earlier, it is mainly the political parties of the ECR and ID groups that focus on these topics, so S&D does not differ significantly in this regard from the remaining political groups (European People’s Party, Renew Europe, Greens-European Free Alliance and European United Left–Nordic Green Left).

No parties specifically address pre-departure integration measures, such as orientation courses in the country of origin to prepare an expected newcomer for life in a European country, or more restrictive measures like mandatory language exams. This is the case even though numerous parties propose establishment or expansion of refugee resettlement programmes, humanitarian corridors, community sponsorship or similar alternative pathways for asylum. It is possible that such measures could be captured by other proposals, but no parties make pre-departure integration a priority. Of the thematic categories that parties (and by extension, MEPs) do discuss, the fewest mention Welfare & Benefits, Health and Housing.

In some countries, particularly central and eastern European Member States, parties are less likely to publish official programmes for the European Parliament elections, and when they do, the programmes are noticeably less detailed than those published by parties from other countries. Broadly speaking, political parties from the newer EU Member States (EU-13) are less likely to mention integration-related topics in their programmes.

According to Eurostat, the top six destination countries for asylum seekers in 2017 and 2018 were Germany, France, Greece, Spain, Italy and the UK. In these countries, 65% of all MEPs come from parties that mention integration in their programmes. This compares to 56% for the EU as a whole. Parties and MEPs from these countries are noticeably more likely to focus on matters related to Budget, Capacity & Research (21% of MEPs, compared to 14% of MEPs in all Member States) as well as the often related topic of Local & Regional Efforts on integration (18% versus 11%, respectively).

In six of the countries with the highest non-national populations by percentage (Luxembourg, Cyprus, Austria, Malta, Belgium and Ireland)—thus, countries with traditionally high rates of all kinds of migration, including intra-EU migration—72% of MEPs come from parties that discuss integration in their programmes. There is clearly greater emphasis on Employment and Language.

By comparison, in the six Member States with the lowest numbers of asylum applicants over the 2017-2018 period (Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal and Slovakia), only 35% of all MEPs come from a party that mentions integration issues in their programme.

Using Eurobarometer survey results, EWSI examined whether party programmes reflect public opinion on migrant integration in the EU context. However, EWSI found no apparent correlation between the percentage of people in each Member State who want common EU policies and measures on integration and the percentage of political parties (or MEPs) that mention integration in their European Parliament election programmes.

Nonetheless, there is some indication that party programmes do reflect public views on migrant integration in the national context. In this respect, there is a weak-to-moderate positive correlation between the percentage of people who believe that fostering integration is important for their country in the long run and the percentage of parties that mention integration in their programmes (r=0.47) or the percentage of MEPs from those parties (r=0.36).

On the other hand, the likelihood of MEPs to discuss integration does not seem to vary based on labour market participation rates, education levels, language abilities, etc. among the migrant populations in each country. Thus, for example, higher unemployment among the migrant population does not seem to make political parties more (or less) likely to talk about employment in the context of integration, or about integration in general.

Source: Eurobarometer

The majority of national political parties and MEPs in the European Parliament care about migrant and refugee integration and have made proposals or relevant statements in their campaigns on this topic. A large number of MEPs come from parties that discuss diversity and social cohesion (including anti-discrimination) in their programmes, while significant numbers also mention budgetary issues (often related to the role that the EU should take on integration and the efforts of local and regional governments) as well as employment.

Parties, and therefore MEPs, from countries with high recent numbers of asylum applicants seem to pay more attention to integration in their programmes. So do parties and MEPs from countries with historically large immigrant populations. The former group tends to focus more on budgetary issues than those in EU countries overall, while the latter group seems to pay more attention to Employment and Language.

There appears to be some connection between whether parties focus on migrant integration in their programmes and the extent to which the public thinks that fostering integration is important for their country. However, there is no apparent connection between public opinion on how active the EU should be on migrant integration and whether parties discuss integration in the context of European elections. This suggests that political party programmes have not yet caught up to public opinion when it comes to the EU’s action on migrant and refugee integration.

Want to learn more? See what the political parties in each Member State had to say about migrant integration in their election programmes.