EU/North America

The programme "Europe for Citizens" pools activities fostering tolerance promotion, gender equality and the protection of fundamental rights.

In this core area of the work programme “Europe for Citizens” activities are pooled that focus diversly on various aspects of the European asylum and refugee policy.

Poland has also taken in refugees and economic migrants from Chechenya, Georgia, and Ukraine. Any solution to the refugee crisis requires EU-level efforts, including effective implementation.

Many experts are in agreement that the causes and long-term implications of the refugee issue can hardly be resolved at national level. Whether Brussels can play a more prominent role was the subject of debate at the annual European Conference held by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung in Berlin on 26 May 2016.

The lack of a consensus culture in political life provides an explanation of France’s cautiousness towards the refugee crisis. Though, when it comes specifically to asylum, a lot has been done since 2012.

Xenophobic sentiments are traditionally high in Hungary but the reasons for Fidesz’ harsh stance on immigration are domestic.

The Nordic countries have traditionally been attractive for refugees. Given the large number of refugees that arrived last year, these countries have introduced an increasingly restrictive asylum policy, however.

In Bulgaria, public opinion approves the patriotic vigilante mobs, which trap refugees crossing Bulgaria’s border.

Before the Spanish reelections on 26. June 2016 the democratisation of the European institutions and the solution of the refugee crisis became relevant issues of the political debate.

In his new book A Heart for Europe. The Case for Europatriotism, Dick Pels postulates a new Europatriotism in times of doubt and uncertainty. Politicians and intellectuals should take responsibility of charismatic and visionary leadership to oppose the politics of fear by rising nationalist movements.