Blickpunkt Großbritannien Büro London The Chandlery Office 609 50 Westminster Bridge Road GB London SE1 7QY Tel 00 44 20 77 21 87 45 Fax 00 44 20 77 21 87 46 www.feslondon.org.uk July 2008 Network for diversity and integration – a project of the Party of European Socialists With progressing globalisation, the traditional notion of nation states as ethnically, re­ligiously and culturally homogenous entities is turning more and more into a relict from the past. For reality already looks very different: to an ever greater degree, diver­sity will become the dominant structural characteristic of most European societies. Be­fore the backdrop of this development, Gary Tiley, MEP and chair of the PSE’s“Diver­sity and Integration Network”, reports on projects and possible solutions in Europe that aim at facilitating the entrance and the participation of minority groups in societal and political life and, by these means, head towards a society which no longer defines itself along ethnic and religious criteria but by common social aims and values. Gary Titley* The nation state was built around the prin­ciples of on country, one ruler, one people and one religion. Interestingly though, communities that stuck rigidly to these prin­ciples, generally found themselves stagnat­ing, while those countries which adopted a more pragmatic approach, generally thrived economically from the skills of immigrants, many of whom were fleeing religious perse­* Gary Titley, since 1989 a Labour Member of the European Parliament, who works in numerous committees, is leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party and chair of the PES’s„Diversity and Integration Network“. Founded in 2007, the Network aims to facilitated discussion and the exchange of experiences between citizens of the EU and PES’s social­ist and social democratic member parties. Its focus is on the challenges of the increasing diversity of European societies as well as the opportunities and difficulties faced in the inte­gration of migrants and other minorities. Note that though they are the first group for the Network to work on, Muslims are not its sole focus. cution. In reality, most European nations today are the result of centuries of succes­sive waves of immigration. In the past, most of the immigrants were gradually assimi­lated over generations becoming often in­distinguishable from the native population. Nonetheless each wave of immigration brought with it issues of integration and dis­crimination little different from those preva­lent today. Globalisation has enormously accelerated the movement of people. More than 175 million people live outside their country of birth. The motivation for this mobility has either bin economic, with migrants looking