I have been involved as a country expert for Malta in the project POLITIS- Building Europe with New Citizens? An Inquiry into the Civic Participation of Naturalised Citizens and Foreign Residents in 25 Countries.

It was an interesting experience and I am glad I was involved especially because the project, which is still ongoing, combines academic background research with a strong empirical dimension, which I really appreciate.

The project explored the positive potential of immigrants for the development of an active European society, starting with foreign students’ perceptions of Europe and focusing on sustained social and political activities of immigrants. Indeed, one of the main goals was that of understanding when and why temporary migrants and permanent immigrants from third countries become active in the receiving societies, what influences their choice of activity, and which factors promote or inhibit immigrant activism.

In total 25 country experts were involved to prepare Country Reports on Immigrant Civic Participation for all 25 EU Member States. The reports present information on national migration, integration policy, and civic participation and offer, for the
first time, a systematic and dense information source for all 25 member states on these
issues. They can be downloaded from the POLITIS’s website

But what makes the project even more interesting is the fact that it also promoted the participation of student researchers recruiting and training more than 70 students and young researchers from 40 different countries around the world. They took part in a Summer School in Greece in July 2005 where they were trained on issues relating to EU immigration, intercultural dialogue, civic participation, and interview techniques. Their task now is to identify civically active immigrants and to interview them. In this way they can participate in the effort to cover a wide variety of immigrant experiences across all EU Member States. They will also participate in a second summer school in Germany in July 2006, discussing preliminary results of the interview analysis and other material. From autumn 2006, the project coordinators aim at disseminating results not only in academic publications, but also with the wider community in as many EU countries as possible.

In my case, working on the Malta report was particularly interesting as there is almost no literature at all on the issue of “immigration to Malta�, as opposed to the many studies available on “emigration from Malta�. The study involved fieldwork and a study of primary sources concerning a country that joined the EU just in May 2004, is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and has recently become a receiving country for migrants. All attributes that make Malta a country of particular interest from the point of view of migration research.

The whole project is funded by the European Commission (DG Research) in Brussels.

Three research institutes are working together in the POLITIS project:
• the University of Oldenburg, Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Bildung und Kommunikation in Migrationsprozessen
• the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) in Athens; and,
• the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence.
The Churches’ Commission of Migrants in Europe (CCME) in Brussels is a European NGO with links to churches and migrant organisations. As a forth partner, it consults the research partners and promotes the dissemination of results.