Joppke, Christian. "Beyond National Models: Civic Integration Policies for Immigrants in Western Europe". West European Politics, Vol.30, No.1 (2007): 1-22.

Joppke, Christian. "Beyond National Models: Civic Integration Policies for Immigrants in Western Europe". West European Politics, Vol.30, No.1 (2007): 1-22.

• By the 1990s, there was a general impression in Western Europe that the policies adopted to deal with immigration were either ineffective or actively detrimental to national interests. Even states with strong national traditions regarding immigration, like France or the Netherlands, saw these policies rejected by voters by the turn of the 21st Century (1).
• If proposals suggesting the existence of distinct national models of immigration policy in Europe ever existed, which there is a lot of doubt about, they certainly no longer exist. The three European states traditional representing 'ideal types': France, Germany, and the Netherlands, have each undergone major changes in the essential nature of their immigration policies since the turn of the 21st Century (2, 19).
• In November 2004, all EU countries agreed to promote a general plan of immigration policies which were 'broadly if imperfectly inclusive'. This plan represents a commitment to general liberal values of equality, despite the strong opposition of most national publics to immigration and immigrants (3).
• The policy recommendations adopted by the European Council further contends that integration requires both that immigrants adopt the liberal values of the EU, and an effort by host countries to change in order to ensure full social, economical, and political inclusion of immigrants (3).
• Some EU members, particularly Spain, attempted to modify the document to specific protect the rights of immigrants to practice their national cultures. This was voted down by other members in favour of a general liberal guarantee of these rights through preservation of private life. This was further modified with a requirement that immigrants respect gender equality and the rights of children, reflecting European fears the Muslim immigrants will not do this (4).
• The general shift in EU attitudes on this issue is relatively new, as countries which had previously supported and even encouraged immigrants to retain different languages and cultural practices, like Sweden and the Netherlands, came down decisively in favour of prioritizing and requiring adherence to liberal values (4).
• The document also stressed the importance of employment as a means of integration, reflecting concerns about the high proportion of first and second-generation immigrants dependent on welfare in Europe as compared to the virtual absense of this situation in North America. This is being increasingly expressed in requirements that migrants be financially self-sufficient (4).
• The EU document also affirmed the policy of civic integration first introduced in the Netherlands in the 1990s, later being adopted by Germany, Finland, Denmark, Austria, and France. It enourages immigrants to learn the languages, cultures, histories, and political institutions of their host countries, and conceptualizes this knowledge as core to the process of integration (5).
• The European Council also created a international framework for anti-discrimination in both the public and private sectors, allowing immigrants to protest discrimination in employment or provision of public services to an EU body. This demonstrates that anti-discrimination is now a core part of EU policy (5).
• Since the early 1980s, the Netherlands pioneered a system of official multiculturalism, with the state promoting and financing schools, hospitals, and public media tailored for specific ethnic groups. This policy was concurrent with a total failure of socioeconomic integration, with immigrants to the Netherlands experiencing unemployment at three-times the rate of native Netherlanders, experiencing massively greater drop-out rates, disproportionately becoming impoverished and ghettoized, and being disproportionately involved in crime (5-6).
• In response to this complete failure of integration, during the late 1990s, the Netherlands abandoned multicultural policies in favour of civic integration. This manifested in the 1998 Newcomer Integration Law, which demanding all new immigrants participate in a course on Netherlandish language, culture, history, government, and demonstrate participation in the labour market. Few penalties were attached for non-complience, however, and overall the program was not coercive (6-7).
• The assassination of anti-immigrant politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002 by an anti-fascist activist marked a decisive turn in Netherlandish perceptions of Islam and immigration. The 2006 law passed by the Balkenende government simultaneously cut state assistance for integration -- making immigrants totally responsible for learning about Netherlandish language, culture, and government on their own -- and making permanent residency status dependent on passing the citizenship examination (7).
•  The 2006 law also introduced stringent requirements for family immigration, which has historically been one of the main forms of migration to the Netherlands and the primary source of welfare-dependent immigrants. Those applying for family migration must now pass the citizenship test at a Netherlandish embassy for gaining even temporary residence (8).
• These requirements are not only meant to prevent dependent or unskilled immigrants through unregulated family immigration, but also discourage the practice, common among Turkish and Moroccan communities, of marrying non-Netherlandish spouses. This practice is seen as facilitating insular ethnic communities and retarding integration, and it is something the Netherlands is eager to prevent (8-9).
• Like elsewhere in Europe, separate systems for immigration is increasingly being developed for unskilled immigrants, subject to more stringent requirements, and highly-skilled immigrants, given increasingly preferential status (8).
• Despite strong resonance between Netherlandish civic integration policies and the French tradition of Jacobin assimilation, the French government has been slow to introduce similar policies. The first course on French culture, a voluntary 4 hour introduction, was established only in 1998 by the Jospin government (9).
• This was supplemented in 2003 by the Raffarin goverment, which introduced a one-day course on French civics, as well as a much longer course on French language. Over two-thirds of immigrants to France, however, were exempt from the language segment, reflecting the fact that most immigrants continue to come from former colonies (9).
• A coercive turn in immigration policy only manifested under the Sarkozy government, which tied completion of the courses introduced by the Raffarin government with permanent residency status. The pressure on immigrants was further increased by a shortening of the time granted by a temporary visa, forcing immigrants to seek permanent residency status or face deportation (10).
• In 2006, the French government introduced the beginning of separate systems for highly skilled and unskilled migrants, creating special exemptions for highly-skilled migrants from general integration requirements (11).
• Germany civic intregration, mainly through courses on German language and culture, simply expanded a system originally created in the 1990s for German co-ethnics in Eastern Europe and Russia to include all those applying for German citizenship. The existence of separate systems for ethnic Germans and foreigners for decades meant that there was never opposition to making citizenship contingent on these integration courses (12-13).
• The expansion of these courses to non-ethnic Germans in the early 2000s resulted in disputes between the Social Democratics, who wanted the state to fund these courses, and the Christian Democrats, who demanded that immigrants pay for attendence. A compromise was reached so that the state paid for the vast majority of course costs, but also made access to walfare benefits contingent upon completion of these courses (13).
• While this compromise, enshrined in the 2004 Immigration Law, also makes continued residency status dependent upon completion of integration, this provision does not apply to family immigration due to constitutional protections. This means that the vast majority of immigrants to German cannot be deported for failure to integrate (13).
• Despite large national differences, different immigration regimes in Europe are converging on increased obligations for immigrants to integrate themselves socially, economically, and culturally. Rather than being motivated by racism or nationalism, these new requirements stem from a liberal conception that all citizens must have the skills needed to fully participate in society, requiring interventions, including coersive measures, to guarantee full inclusion (14).
• So far, these integration policies have emphasized liberal social and political norms, not elements of national culture. The conceptualization of liberalism and liberal values, however, is shaped by conceptions about Islam in particular, and an active attempt to exclude conservative Muslim views from those acceptable in liberal society (14-15). To be honest, I might fail the German test too,  it demands opposition to arranged marriage and religious veils.
• The policies pursued by the EU are simultaneously protecting the rights to fundamental equality and non-discrimination of immigrants while subjecting them to strict requirements to conform to neoliberal ideals of an atomized, autonomous, and self-sufficient citizenry. These ideals citizens are protected, while all deviations from this model are punished (15-16).
• This trend is being driven by neoliberalism and globalization, creating additional economic pressures on individuals to be able to compete in employment -- regardless of national origin -- and to be financially self-sufficient due to the retreat of the welfare state. Nationalist concerns about culture in general have been subordinated to economic concerns about certain cultural practice as impediments to economic competitiveness (16-18).
• The increased separation of citizenship policy for highly skilled and unskilled migrants is demonstrative of this change in the purpose of integration policies. The actual culture of the immigrant is not a problem, the state is only concerned with the ability of the immigrant to increase the overall competitiveness of the national economy. Thus, unskilled immigrants are increasingly excluded or subjected to measures to increase their economic effectiveness, while highly skilled immigrants are fought over for the economic value they possess (18).
• These policies have not developed for the same reasons across different countries. While all have some common causes, the unique elements of the Netherlandish experience are the result a strong nativist right-wing movement not found in many other European states. These causes are also important in determining immigration and cannot all be reduced to neoliberal economy-centric motives (18).
• Immigration policies in Europe and North America have likely diverged in the 21st Century, with only Europe taking a turn towards more coercive integration policies, due to different sources of immigration. Whereas the majority of immigrants to North America are selected on the basis of skills and language ability, most immigrants to Europe arrive on the basis of asylum rights or family migration, without the input of the receiving state. Because of this difference, North America does not have to 'condition' or assimilate its immigrants because they are already the population it wants to have (18-19).