Story of a journey across Europe: From first reception to integration of migrants

In 2015-2016, when the influx of refugees trying to escape from conflict and persecution and seek asylum in Europe was at its climax, the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) and SOLIDAR launched the common project “From Europe to local: Migrating solidarity”, which aimed at analysing the crucial role that civil society organisations all over Europe played in offering assistance, support and comfort to migrants wishing to integrate in European societies.

As a result, a first book focused on the difficult relations between NGOs and public authorities – at local, national and European level – responsible for the integration process.

In this publication, we focus our attention on the migrants’ journey across Europe, from the problems of the very first reception to the integration stage. Furthermore, as the number of vulnerable migrants, namely women and minors, has been growing, we decided that particular attention should be paid to them, their needs and the services offered to them. The result of our efforts is this book, an assessment of first reception services in Greece and Italy and of the integration of young migrants in Germany. The book symbolically covers the three countries that have been most affected – in absolute terms – by what has been called the refugee crisis; which is being defined by an increasing number of observers as a crisis of solidarity.