AER Committee 1,2 & 3 Spring Plenary meetings 2016
Speech by Andreas Galster (Germany, PPE/CCE), member of the Congress
11-14 April 2016, Timișoara, Timiș (Romania)
Check against delivery
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you for inviting the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe to your meeting. I am a member of the Congress and I am also the Mayor of Stadt Baeirsdorf in Baviera, Germany.
In the Congress, we are aware of the importance of communicating standards and good practice, particularly in a time of crisis. In such times, established rules and standards we have fought for come under threat.
Since the beginning of 2015 when the double crisis of extremist violence on the one hand and war refugees arriving in masses hit Europe, our member States reacted in ways that has shown us that our Europe is not as consolidated as we think it is.
We at the Congress are especially sensitive to this issue: The subnational levels of government and particularly the cities are more directly hit with the reality of this crisis. Our role is to make local and regional authorities aware that there are problems to solve, people to help, but also standards to uphold.
• Refugee and migrant crisis:
This is why the Congress consecrated its 2015 session debates to the refugee and migrant crisis, inviting mayors involved in the reception of refugees to explain the challenges facing local authorities in member States. Mayors of cities that were in the frontline in receiving refugees such as Calais in France, Lampedusa in Italy, Kos in Greece and Kobane in Syria came and talked about their difficulties. The sessions were transmitted live on the internet and a twitter account was opened for participation.
• Currently the Congress is working on a report on refugees/migrants: “From reception to integration: the role of local authorities facing migration”. We are going to adopt a resolution and a recommendation to Member States in March 2017.
• Radicalisation related activities:
In 2015, in the wake of the terrorist attacks in 2015, the Congress adopted a strategy to combat radicalisation at grassroots level.
In our Resolution 384 (2015) on “Guidelines for local and regional authorities on preventing radicalisation and manifestations of hate at grass-roots’ level”, we recommended local authorities to design strategies to involve civil society in their work against radicalisation and extremism.
We invited them to support exit programs for individuals willing to leave extremism, allocating the necessary resources to combat radicalisation. The so-called Aarhus model is a good example of this.
We organized a conference, in cooperation with the Mayors of Aarhus and Rotterdam and the European Forum for Urban Security in Aarhus, Denmark, on 18 November 2015 under the heading “Towards an alliance of European cities against violent extremism”.
The participants adopted the Aarhus declaration at the end, calling for an Alliance of Cities to be set up to prevent radicalisation leading to violent extremism. This year, on 9 November 2016, we will get together again in Rotterdam, at the Summit of Mayors, to launch the “Alliance.
We are now working on a Toolkit for local authorities organising intercultural and interreligious activities. It will be ready for release in Autumn2016. We want to underline the importance of action at local and regional level for social inclusion.
Local elected representatives need to be shown that many European cities have good practice examples on intercultural and interreligious dialogue which can serve as a good resource.
The main feature of the Toolkit will be a website where these resources will be stored and updated.
The Congress will prepare several factsheets giving access to the information online, such as:
• relevant texts of international bodies on intercultural and interreligious dialogue, the fight against radicalisation and violent extremism, democratic citizenship and for building inclusive societies;
• key academic work led in this field;
• relevant university curricula and existing trainings in Europe;
• on existing good practices.
The Toolkit will also include the 12 Principles for interfaith dialogue at local level, in a leaflet form. These 12 principles complement the ideas presented in the Council of Europe White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue "Living together as equals in dignity" adopted in 2008.
The toolkit will be available in print in the 36 languages of the Council of Europe member states.
To raise awareness about this practical tool developed by the Congress, we will also produce a short video clip.
I would like to finish by mentioning two good practice examples developed by cities:
GOOD PRACTICE N 1
Fighting Fiction with Facts: the BCN Anti-Rumour Campaign, Barcelona, Spain
In November 2010, the Barcelona City Council developed a long-term strategy to improve coexistence among local and new immigrants. They launched a clever public service campaign to dispel rumours, misconceptions and the prejudices that many local people held about minorities and immigrants.
They recruited and trained ‘anti-rumour agents’ to dispel myths and spread the campaign through local organizations and the city’s neighbourhoods. Their mission was to contradict uninformed ideas about immigrants and combat discrimination.
Since the launch of the Anti-Rumour Campaign, more than 350 people have been trained as ‘anti-rumour agents’. A new guidebook to combat prejudices and stereotypes is now available online. Barcelona City Council means business. They have created a dedicated intercultural dialogue fund of €200,000 per year for community led projects that promote anti-rumour campaign goals, They invested in a powerful partnership with local media organizations to educate journalists, promote awareness and be ready to respond constructively to negative news. Other city councils in Catalonia are working on establishing their own versions.
GOOD PRACTICE N 2
Meet your neighbours, Promoting interaction and understanding through inter-faith dialogue, Blackburn with Darwen, United Kingdom
In 2007, 18 teenage girls from three different schools – one Islamic, one Roman Catholic and one secular got together to bring girls from different backgrounds together to learn from each other, and to discover the many things they had in common.
The Meet Your Neighbours programme came out of a community forum in Blackburn which is one of England’s most segregated cities. The borough has a large, established and growing Asian community and the highest proportion of Muslims (19 %) outside of London.
City and community leaders learned that opinions are often shaped by misconceptions and stereotypes and that it is important that people from different background have the opportunity to meet.
The project produced a toolkit that can be used by other local authorities and has potential for building lasting links between schools. The strength of the “Meet Your Neighbours” program is summed up best by one of the participating teachers: “There is so much more that unites them than divides them.”