No integration without social participation

The integration plan agreed to at the "Integration Summit" of July 2007 represents a sea change for Germany in terms of its attitudes toward immigration. Despite the communiqué's some 200 pages, the message is clear: Integration is a challenge for everyone and can only prove successful if the political, business and civil society sectors -- and, not least, immigrants themselves -- work proactively to find answers to existing questions.

By treating immigrants as equal partners and offering them dialogue and social inclusion, policymakers at the summit created a robust process that ultimately led to the national integration plan. Until now, as North Rhine-Westphalia's Integration Minister Armin Laschet emphasized prior to the first Integration Summit in 2006, when reaching decisions impacting integration policy, Germans have tended to talk about immigrants but not with them. The new approach is now widely accepted and could not even be placed into question by the boycott of the second summit by various immigrant groups. On the contrary: those who seriously desire social participation have to be willing to tolerate diverging opinions and conflict.

For decades German society was only marginally interested in its immigrants. In the 1960s they were welcomed as workers for filling slots in particular industries, but the joblessness they experienced beginning in the 1970s, their children's lack of success in the German school system and their exclusion from the country's elections were rarely seen as a challenge for the nation as a whole.

That has changed in recent years. Germany is gradually becoming an accepted destination country for immigrants. To that end, there is only one answer to the question of how integration might prove successful: through social participation, meaning through the inclusion of immigrants and their children as equal members in society and in the opportunities that Germany has to offer. Participation is the key to integration -- something that was impressively demonstrated by both national competitions on the subject organized by the Bertelsmann Stiftung together with Germany's president and the Interior Ministry.

Germany's integration-related shortcomings are considerable, despite recent positive developments. This is especially true in the areas of education, training and employment. In the social and cultural sectors as well, "bunker mentalities" exist on both sides. All parties have yet to see Germany as a common homeland and have yet to understand that what is important is not individual backgrounds, but our common future -- as Germany's late president, Johannes Rau, said in his visionary first speech in Berlin at the beginning of the millennium. In terms of the social participation of its immigrants, Germany's existing shortcomings represent a considerable burden for the country's future. They ensure that potential resources remain untapped and that social tensions will persist. Given globalization and its economic consequences, not to mention the impacts of demographic change, Germany can no longer afford what is known as "insufficient integration." Experts estimate that the current state of affairs costs the country some €16 billion each year in the form of lost tax revenues and reduced contributions to social assistance programs, as well as extra outlays for those same social assistance programs (for more information, see the BASS study carried out on behalf of the Bertelsmann Stiftung and available for download on this page).

Germany needs a new framework for integrating its immigrants and ensuring they are included in society at large. This new collaboration must be based on an attitude which supports freedom and diversity and which provides a minimum level of consensus on common values. Immigrant associations are an important venue for social participation, since they play a key role when it comes to integration. As organizations representing the interests of non-Germans, they offer their members guidance and assistance as well as the possibility of making contact with each other and the society they live in. For decades these organizations were marginal social players in the truest sense; now policymakers and the public have come to recognize their importance as "bridge builders." The Bertelsmann Stiftung wants to support these organizations in their integration-related efforts through its program for young leaders (see project list).