Grupo Ágora

1 The practice

2 Hints for an evaluation

2.1 Strenghts

Themes

• "ECRE"’S notion of Europe is not institutional, but geographical. Since the institutional component is changeable with time and migration is influenced to a large extent by geographical variables, "ECRE"’s membership and field of action is not restricted to EU countries, but to European countries in general. This approach to migration issues is more realistic than considering only EU member countries, and provides a possible future vision of an enlarged Europe.
• A most positive aspect of "ECRE" is the fact that it studies the implementation of national and international law relating to refugees. Since migration is an international practice, the approach to migration should also be international. If we are to understand migration within a European context, a common European legal framework is necessary. As long as such common framework is not a reality, "ECRE"’s comparative legal research is a priceless tool for legal practitioners and institutions working with refugees and asylum seekers.
• "ECRE"’s research results are accessible to everybody (not only its member agencies) at its website. In this sense, "ECRE" does not only help its member agencies, but also any organisation or institution working with refugees and asylum seekers that might not be eligible for ECRE membership at the present moment, but could be in the future thanks to "ECRE"’s help.
• "ECRE" is also a model for inclusive project that strives to involve wider civil society, the political community and refugee communities in its work.
• "ECRE" undergoes periodical external evaluations of its work and develops actions according to the results obtained.
• "ECRE" also commissions feasibility studies before expanding its capacity building work, which increases its chances for success when developing it.
• "ECRE" keeps a good balance between income and expenditure. This fact, together with a sound yearly funding, guarantees its continuity.
• "ECRE"’s perspective of the refugee/asylum seeker assistance presents both hosts and refugees as beneficiaries of the assistance on the basis of shared interests.
• Given the width of ECRE, many of the programs they run can be considered good intercultural practices by themselves.

• We consider it very positive that "ECRE" provides its member agencies with all the advantages of belonging to a network while encouraging them to keep their own autonomy and start their own independent projects. With this procedure, the member agencies keep their independence in taking decisions, organising activities and internal structure, etc. with the only compromise of cooperating with the rest of member agencies when necessary. Their idea of intercultural cooperation is thus based on both respect for the particularities of each national member agency and cooperation within a wider (European) frame.
• "ECRE"’s network is democratic. All its member agencies have the same status within the network and the process of selection for belonging to "ECRE" is non-discriminatory. These two characteristics are positive intercultural values, since they establish the basis of a good intercultural cooperation.
• Maintaining an office in Brussels, apart from the London Secretariat, is very convenient in terms of developing vis-à-vis activities with the institutions of the European Union. Although it might be more practical to install the Secretariat in Brussels, keeping the Brussels office is a positive alternative to moving the London Secretariat.

2.2 Critical Points

"ECRE" finds some resistance from governments who want to implement more restrictive asylum policies, but they fight them back with new proposals including resettlement, a truly fair and efficient asylum system and integration. "ECRE" needs more staff in Brussels in order to be more influential in EU policies. "ECRE"’s warning against the recent (2005) Procedures directive adopted by EU member States, according to which States are allowed to return asylum seekers to their country of origin even before the legal process to determine if they need protection is concluded, was considered by the EU Parliament, who adopted a resolution condemning key clauses of the Directive. "ECRE" needed to alter its management structure so that the GS could be more externally facing and the administrative management function would rest with another senior manager. Their executive committee was also restructured to allow for fewer people to attend some meetings - as the cost of full meetings was very high.
 
Inmigrants are not directly involved in "ECRE", nor does "ECRE" require such characteristic from its member agencies . Perhaps positive discrimination should be considered a prerequisite both for belonging to "ECRE" and for being elected as a member of the Executive Comitee. In general, intercultural practices in Europe—even those that can be considered “good practices” do not consider positive discrimination as an element to be taken into account despite its general practice in countries with a large tradition and experience in dealing with migration issues, such as the USA.
 
Although "ECRE" prides of encouraging its member agencies to develop their own initiatives and restricting "ECRE"’s activity to mainly counselling and training, it might be advisable to design common projects among the member agencies, or to coordinate joint projects among member agencies when such projects are similar in their objectives, target, methodology and activities. It is true that this focus might limit the member’s agencies autonomy to a certain extent, but the results might also be improved.

2.3 Lessons Learnt

What is most innovative and positive about "ECRE" is its network structure itself (and the fact that it appeared thirty years ago, when this kind of initiatives were very rare). Other NOGs groups could also organise themselves with such network structure to save time and efforts in reaching their goals. It works as an involved advisor which proves to be more than that in helping organisations with fundraising and research (the former being too tiresome and time consuming; the second, very expensive too). It might be argued that projects such as "ECRE" do not directly help or work with refugees and asylum seekers, but the results of their work have both as their ultimate target. "ECRE" increases NGOs capacities and is an example of good intercultural experience (in the sense of working together) because it connects NGOs from different cultures and countries and grants them with enough autonomy to adapt to their particular targets and circumstances. In this sense, "ECRE" shows respect for diversity and a spirit of inclusion. Its pan-European approach, shows great understanding of the new (and even the future) migratory situation in Europe (reconfiguration of borders) and thus designs more effective strategies from a wider perspective.

Christopher Hein, Director of the Italian Council for Refugees reflects on the relevance of "ECRE"’s work and its effectiveness: “The continuous link between "ECRE"’s EU offices and CIR, as a national member organisation, allowed us to promote a European approach to one of the greatest problems in the refugee field in Europe: the modalities of arrival of asylum seekers within the EU and to try to overcome what has been perceived to be only a national concern for far too long.”