News – YOUROPEAN, a symbol of openness towards migrants

On December 14, 2013, the artist Mathias Willvonseder from Copenhagen installed 100 globes to create a point of light in the darkness alluding to a cradle, a reference to Christmas symbolism. The globes are a symbol for globalisation with its inherent challenges, including the increasing number of migrants. The cradle is a symbol for welcome and shelter and reminds us of the Christian tradition of solidarity and mercy. The globes are meant to provide orientation to the fugitives and to demonstrate that they are welcome in Europe.

«As the he founders of YOUROPEAN we want to set a symbol for a more open attitude towards migrants who have embarked on a risky path to Europe in the hope of a better future. We have no doubt that the European Union has to push its gates wide open for migrants. We not only owe this to our responsibility as human beings, but it also and primarily serves our own interests. Europe has always been a continent of migrants. Looking forward Europe again will have to rely increasingly on immigrants to mitigate the negative effects of unsustainable birth rates and declining populations», says Bodo Bimboese, member of the board of YOUROPEAN.
«In Germany and Europe we have benefitted significantly from workers coming from other countries, and we have learnt how a successful integration can be achieved. If we start today to develop opportunities for people from crisis countries by offering and requesting job-oriented education, thereby opening our labour markets to them, Europe can maintain its diversity, ingenuity and economic strength», says Klaus Moessle, member of the board of YOUROPEAN.
«From our perspective there is a range of possibilities for a focused support of migrants: instead of spending huge amounts for border patrols, the European Union should rather invest its money into programmes for integration, education and professional training. The border protection agency Frontex should be instructed to guide boats overloaded with fugitives safely to the next harbour instead of sending them back to the open sea. Also, a reform of the Dublin Accord which puts all the burden of receiving fugitives on the border countries is overdue. Above all, the EU member states have to re-think their antiquated attitude towards immigration, and to adjust it to current and future needs of Europe», requests Bimboese.

YOUROPEAN hopes to stimulate via the Lampedusa initiative the Europe wide discussion of migration policies in the European Union, with the aim to contribute to a new thinking about migration policies. It is a crucial question whether the EU wants to further build out a “Fortress Europe” or whether it has the courage to open up in a strategic move for a successful future of the whole continent: «Migrants are not a “burden” which has to be born across Europe, migrants have enriched and will enrich our continent also in the future».