Law on the Reorganisation of Participation in the State of Berlin, 8 Juli 2022 Niewiedzial

Together with students from the master's programme ‘International Social Work with Refugees and Migrants’ at the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt, the course "Onboarding in Europe? Social Cohesion in a Diverse Europe. Strategies, Controversies, Future.‘ at the European University Viadrina on 8 July 2022 to discuss the ’Law on the Reorganisation of Participation in the State of Berlin" with Katharina Niewiedzial, the Berlin Senate Commissioner for Integration and Migration.

They discussed the Participation and Integration Act and its revision. The Commissioner considered the amendment necessary because the previous law was too little known and its provisions were not clearly formulated. As a result, it was not implemented in a concrete manner and was insufficiently enforced. Some concepts and terms were also outdated and were adapted.

At the start of the meeting, the Integration Commissioner pointed out that the outdated integration concept had been revised and that the current focus was clearly on cooperation with migrant organisations and NGOs, as well as on advisory work. In her work, she pays attention to any interdependencies that may exist in this field.

The integration officer explained that the term ‘migration background’ was retained in the law because support measures in the area of human resources should be based on comprehensible and potentially verifiable data. The term ‘migration background’ is a statistically introduced variable, which means that administrations can collect this information anonymously from applicants and employees on a voluntary basis. According to the Integration Commissioner, these figures are necessary in order to target, recruit and promote people more effectively, but also to be able to report on the development of the number of employees with a migration background.

The revision of the law was preceded by a comprehensive evaluation. In addition to the administration and politicians, migrant organisations, associations and clubs were involved in the revision process from the outset. According to the integration commissioner, this is important in order to really involve civil society actively. The new Participation Act of 5 July 2021 has been in force since 16 July 2021. When asked which participation theory the Act refers to, the Commissioner referred to the staged model of participation developed by Roger Hart (1992) and Wolfgang Gernert (1993).

The particularly complex situation in Berlin was also discussed during the meeting. According to Katharina Niewiedzial, there are more than 700 organisations, advice centres, associations, etc. run by and/or for migrants. One of the central challenges for the Commissioner is therefore to gain a good overview of the existing services and structures. The population of Berlin is also particularly diverse, according to the Commissioner. However, this is not reflected in the public service. At this point, Ms Niewiedzial refers once again to the new Participation Act, which is also intended to promote the equal participation of people with a migration background. The Act sets guidelines for this, for example, around 35 per cent of public service employees should have a migration background in future.

However, these are only guidelines and no official quotas have been set in the law.

Sources:

The Berlin Senate Commissioner for Integration and Migration:
https://www.berlin.de/lb/intmig/

Hart, Roger (1992). ‘Children's Participation: From Tokenism To Citizenship’ (PDF). Innocenti Essays (5): 8. Florence: UNICEF

Gernert, Wolfgang (1993) Jugendhilfe –Einführung in die sozialpädagogische Praxis (Youth Welfare – An Introduction to Social Pedagogical Practice), Munich, Basel: Ernst Reinhardt Verlag

Law on the Promotion of Participation in the Migration Society of the State of Berlin (Participation Act – PartMigG) of 5 July 2021:
https://gesetze.berlin.de/bsbe/document/jlr-PartMigGBErahmen