Speech Vichy, France 04 November 2008
Nyamko Sabuni, Minister for Integration and Gender Equality

Address by Ms Nyamko Sabuni at European ministerial conference on integration

Mr Chairman, Ministers, Distinguished colleagues,

Thank you for this opportunity to share with you some of Sweden's experiences and to address our common challenges.

This conference is a continuation of the Groningen and the Potsdam conferences. We are grateful to the French EU Presidency for taking this cooperation further into more concrete action. We also welcome the Commission's valuable work to support our efforts.

The declaration prepared for Vichy is part of the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum. I believe it is important to distinguish integration policy as a national competence from immigration policy, and that the conclusions of this conference must be implemented in the light of that.

Across Europe there is intensive search for new ways to achieve the core objectives of integration; equal rights, equal opportunities and obligations for all. The very future of Europes welfare and competitiveness may well depend on the success of these efforts.

While we have experienced increased immigration to Sweden over the past decades, we have also experienced growing exclusion. Not least have immigrants and young people been heavily affected by exclusion. We have half a million of people living in areas where the majority of the people are unemployed and where many of the children do not graduate from school. The overall goal of the Swedish government is therefore to combat exclusion, with a particular focus on employment, education and security.

Access to employment is the most important key factor to successful integration. In comparison with other European countries Sweden has a high degree of unemployment among third country immigrants.

This low degree of employment has several causes. Some of them are related to the general level of supply and demand of labour. Others have to do with the language skills, education and the ability of the educational system to meet individual needs. And of course Discrimination is another important factor that cannot be overlooked.

Our educational system is now undergoing changes in order to better meet individual and labour market needs.

A new anti-discrimination act will enter into force in January. This act will apply to most areas of society, such as working life, education, housing, goods and services and so on. Most important with this new act is that it will cost to discriminate.

It is fundamental that supply and demand of labour balances. How do we achieve this? Well taxes for one thing. In Sweden it is a tradition to use taxes in order to change peoples behaviour in a positive way. We use high taxes to motivate people to drink or smoke less. Having high taxation on labour force probably automatically will lead to a decreased supply of job opportunities. Therefore our government has decided that reducing taxes on labour is an effective way of also reducing unemployment in general and among newcomers in particular.

Besides lowering taxes on the labour market in general, the government has launched specific measures in order to employ people who have been unemployed for long periods. Most of them are immigrants. Employers are exempted from payroll taxes and social security contributions during a period corresponding to the period a person has been unemployed.

Another measure involves high subsidies of payroll costs for employers that hires newly arrived immigrants. The employers need only to pay 25 percent of the payroll cost during a period of two years. One condition is that the employer allows the employee to participate in language education during working hours.

For those hiring young people less than 26 years of age need only to pay half of the payroll taxes.

145 000 new jobs were created last year in Sweden, and 45 percent of them went to immigrants. But despite an increase in the number of employees among people born abroad, their employment rate is lagging in relation to the native population. So we believe more needs to be done.

That's why the government recently presented a comprehensive strategy for integration for the years 2008 to 2010. A number of important areas of general policies have been identified. I will mention a few of these where key factors are education and employment.

One thing we need to establish is:

- A more effective system of reception and introduction of new arrivals.

We are preparing a bill on the introduction of newly arrived immigrants.
Years of previous experiences of a "care-taking" approach have resulted in a backlash. The median-time from asylum to working life is as long as seven years. We need to improve our skills when it comes to recognising foreign diplomas, correctly evaluate merits and improve access to complementary education.

We need to reinforce the incentives for both individuals and government agencies to work for a speedy entry of the newly arrived into the labour market. Incentives to work will be the subject of a high-level expert meeting during the Swedish EU Presidency next autumn (2009).
Not only employment but also entrepreneurship is at focus.

A second thing we need to establish is:

- Better educational performance.

Statistics show that children born in Sweden by immigrated parents do well at school and are on the same level as the majority of children. But children having arrived at an age of four or five are having difficulties in school. Many of them are leaving primary school without having passed their exams. Measures are prepared to support this group.

A third thing to establish will be:

- Better language education for adults.

Apart from all this I believe that one general key factor is our common shared values that we need to identify and strengthen. Democratic values, human rights and gender equality must play more vital roles. Various European identities based on shared history, one religion or one culture have lesser and lesser importance.

Today, we have over nine million people living in Sweden. Since 1980, immigration to Sweden has increased by three percent annually. In a few years, the rate of immigration is expected to double in comparison to the birth rate.

In meeting our future demographic challenges as a result of an aging population, immigration to Sweden will play a central role.

Irrespective of recent financial crisis we will soon have a shortage of labour force. Migration means great potential and holds opportunities for our countries.

Migration also creates challenges. As ministers in charge of integration, it is our responsibility to see the potential of and work for a successful integration. Migration without an effective integration policy is not only harmful for the state's economy; it is also a waste of human potential.

I would claim that successful integration is a crucial factor - not least concerning the Lisbon-strategy - making the European Union the most competitive, dynamic and knowledge-based economy.

We can tell that our measures have had a positive effect on integration. But we still have a long way to go to fundamentally reduce exclusion.

Society can provide the necessary tools for integration, such as language courses, complementary education, counselling and employment service. But the efforts and responsibilities to integrate also rest on the individual.

We are shifting our focus from treating immigrants as passive welfare recipients to empowered individuals playing an active role in shaping their own future.

We encourage individuals to take initiatives, make efforts and become responsible for their own lives through early employment or self-employed.

Sweden needs its immigrants, as so does the rest of Europe.