Barcelona as a 'shelter city' (on World Refugee Day)

"*The following is an edited transcript of an interview [with Barcelona city council spokesman Marc Serra] conducted for European Alternatives’ forthcoming documentary Demos: Solidarity in Europe.

In February 2017 thousands of citizens marched in the city of Barcelona following the mayor’s call to challenge the national government over its failure to accept the country’s quota of refugees set by the EU. Like many other EU members, Spain has not fulfilled this quota, with only 1,279 people entering the country in 2018, while its citizens demand more migrants are welcomed. If cities are ready to house these people, and citizens are willing to cooperate with local institutions, what is stopping the process?

European Alternatives: What is the Shelter Cities program and how does it work?

Marc Serra: The Shelter Cities program started around the summer of 2015, when we witnessed the states’ failure to manage the human rights crisis, the refugee crisis. When the cities verified that the states were auctioning off the cities that could accommodate less refugees, we said that’s enough. It started as a cry of anger. Barcelona said “We are actually willing to take in people looking for shelter, fleeing war (in this case it was above all the conflict in Syria) in our cities.” Then, little by little, other cities joined the cry started in Barcelona. Today, almost three years later, a program called Shelter Cities exists, it combines the initial advocacy –– we have been to the United Nations, the European Commission, the Spanish government, even to the Vatican, to demand safe and legal channels to receive refugees–– with local policies, providing housing, translators, human resources teams (social workers, social educators…) to accommodate the refugees who, despite the difficulties created by the states and the EU, are arriving in our cities and, for whom, therefore, we must provide decent living conditions to – it is our duty and obligation.

European Alternatives: What would you say has been, up until today, the greatest success of the program?

Marc Serra: I believe the greatest success of the Shelter Cities program has been to manage to channel the desire to show solidarity, a growing desire among the citizenship. It has been difficult, but I believe we have been able to seize this opportunity. We must take into account that Barcelona has a very long history of solidarity; that the city had already invested a great deal in welcoming East European refugees fifteen years ago, that there had been protests against the war in Iraq, and that here the biggest protests in Europe and perhaps in the entire world took place in favour of the refugees.

The city has opened up and since the beginning of the term the number of asylum seekers it assists has grown threefold. We took care of 4,400 people applying for asylum in 2017, through our service providing counselling for immigrants and refugees, obviously for free, offering free legal assistance, hosting those in need of emergency housing, and developing a local shelter program for vulnerable families.

I believe that, above all, the program has been able to channel this desire to help despite the institutions, so also counteracting the declarations expressed in the public debate, which treat the issues of migration and refugees in a populist manner, therefore allowing us to take a stand against fascism and extremism.

European Alternatives: You talk about institutions, and right now we are in a situation where, on the one hand, Barcelona is an example of wanting to welcome people coming from countries at war, and on the other, despite the EU has imposed national refugee quotas on member states, in order to try to manage this arrival of people, the nation states are blocking that arrival. How does Barcelona cope with this “duality”, this double policy of these two institutions, at the national level and the European one?

Marc Serra: In light of the Spanish government’s reiterated refusal to fulfill the quotas, we went to Brussels to ask the European Commission to take action, as it has already done with some states that have neglected the quota issue in an even more evident way. The fact is that the deals signed in 2015 are still in force, even though they have expired, because they are agreements made not only with the EU, but also with the entire citizenship. Therefore the European Commission can, and must, initiate disciplinary procedures against the states that have failed to comply with the quota system. We want the Spanish government to actually take in the 17,000 people it has committed to take in. We want it because the citizenship wants it, and we will do everything we can to remind both the Spanish state and the European Commission of this..."


Read more from source at European Alternatives here.

spoke with Marc Serra from the City Council of Barcelona about ‘Shelter Cities’, a program initiated by the city to manage the arrival of asylum seekers at a local level.  

We spoke with Marc Serra from the City Council of Barcelona about ‘Shelter Cities’, a program initiated by the city to manage the arrival of asylum seekers at a local level.  

"Brussels rebukes Spain for failing to take in refugees"

[Refugees and migrants wait in line for tea in a camp in Idomeni, on the border between Greece and Macedonia. STOYAN NENOV Reuters]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last week on Catalan (English language) TV, I called for the European Union to hold back financing for Spain if the national government did not immediately follow up on it's previous agreement to welcome significantly greater numbers of refugees than it had done.

"Spain has only taken in 18 refugees since September 2015, when European countries pledged to help people fleeing conflict in Syria. 

In March, the Spanish government promised to speed up that rate by accepting 467 new refugees within that same month. 

But a European Commission report shows that nearly two weeks after the deadline expired, not a single one of those 467 people has arrived on Spanish soil.

Several European institutions are rebuking Spain for these disappointing numbers, and talking about "a lack of willingness" on the part of the Popular Party (PP) acting administration. Acnur, the United Nations refugee agency, joined that chorus of critical voices in Congress on Tuesday."

More from El Pais source article (in English) here.

My latest article in Catalonia Today magazine: "Slow life in Catalonia"

Time. It is the one thing that many of us feel like we don’t have enough of. Generally, we move through our lives at a rapid pace with mobile phones permanently on and our attention fixed on work and earning a living.

But in Catalonia, just as in other parts of the planet, there is an increasing number of people who are trying to reject a hectic ultra-modern lifestyle. They want to experience things in an unhurried way and the international Slow Movement is now helping that to happen.

Inspired by Italian Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food Foundation, which quickly spread world-wide, a number of other Slow movements have begun to emerge, especially across Europe. These now include Slow Science, Slow Design, Slow Money, Slow Travel, Slow Cinema (in this country with, Eduard Punset Casals, the Barcelona-born economist, lawyer and science writer/commentator) and even a Slow Parenting book by Helle Heckman, to add to Carl Honoré’s greatly influential title, “In Praise of Slow.” 

On top of all this, we have Slow Towns (CittaSlow, in Italian) which in Catalonia is the two Empordà Baix villages of Begur and Pals on the Costa Brava. (The Spanish Slow Towns are Bigastro, Lekeittio, Mungia and Rubielos de Mora.)

But what exactly is a Slow Town? 

 

According to the official website “There are currently 147 Cittaslow towns in 24 countries across the world making Cittaslow an internationally recognised standard [of] accreditation that acknowledges the dedication and commitment of community members who work hard to make their part of the world a healthier, greener, happier, slower place to inhabit.”

The mayors of each town are representatives on the international organization of CittaSlow and they are charged with the responsibility of co-ordinating the preservation of their regions’ “distinct identities in the face of global homogenisation.”

Only a town with less than 50,000 residents can apply for formal recognition and CittaSlow states that those who are accepted “are not state capitals or the seat of regional governments, but are strong communities that have made the choice to improve the quality of life for their inhabitants.”

To achieve the status of “Slow Town,” the town council must agree to accept the guidelines of Slow Food and work to “improve conviviality and conserve the local environment.” It first has to pay 600.00 euros to the Cittaslow central office.

Apart from the continuing promotion of Slow Food restaurants and suppliers, some programs already implemented in Slow Towns include recycling projects, after-school programs, and the provision of information for tourists that helps them have a genuine “local’s” experience. For general public use in festivals for example, town councils can also buy Cittaslow biodegradable pulp plates and cutlery made from cellulose, while in their offices using approved recycled paper notepads.

In Catalonia the Slow Food branch in Lleida is particularly active and the Facebook group of the “Slow Movement Catalunya” has in excess of 150 members. They say that they are a social movement that: “defends a slower life, without pressure and eating calmly with friends [in addition to] advocating working at a reasonable pace and not more hours than is necessary, gazing at the sea, playing with children, conscientious thinking and going out for a tranquil walk.”

Last year Carlo Petrini, the founder and President of Slow Food International spoke at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. As the first ever outside speaker to be invited to address the floor in the this forum's ten-year history he gave Slow Food's perspective during a session on the right to food and food sovereignty.

How long might it be before a Catalan from one of the many Slow movements does the same?

Links:

http://www.slowfoodterresdelleida.com/

http://sloyu.com/blog/

http://slow-science.org/

http://www.cittaslow.org/

http://slowdownnow.org/

http://www.slowfoodfoundation.com/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/278348101475/?ref=ts&fref=ts

An edited version of the text above was first published in Catalonia Today magazine in February, 2013.