The Municipality of Sfântu Gheorghe, Romania, a YOUMIG project partner, had the opportunity to visit a city within the Danube region where migration-related processes are present and local authorities have already some experience in responding to them. In November 2017 two representatives of the local YOUMIG team, Béla Gergely Buja and Delin Ionela Antal, took part in a study visit in Salzburg, Austria. This city is known as a popular destination among young people from Covasna county, the region whose capital is Sfântu Gheorghe.

The main aim of the visit was to get in touch with local authorities, language schools and migrant organizations to better understand the institutional background and the challenges of migrant integration.

Additional purposes of the study visit were:

• To observe good practices and implemented projects of tackling the challenges of youth migration
• To establish ties with the local authority for future cooperation
• To acquire knowledge of better understanding and managing the impacts of youth migration, to
  prepare solutions for the challenges that local authorities face in this area

The two representatives of Sfântu Gheorghe council had a busy schedule. They met members of the Romanian and Hungarian communities estabilished in Salzburg and discussed the “push factors” which made them leave for abroad, while also talking about the main aspects of integration, job and housing opportunities and about the support they receive from the local authorities, employers and  NGOs. The main conclusions of these conversations were that Salzburg is a very welcoming area, there are plenty of job opportunities for all levels of qualifications, and integration is easy for those who already speak German, or make efforts to learn. Being a multicultural environment, newcomers are less likely judged upon their place of origin, but rather based on their skills, professional competences and willingness to become part of the larger community. Eastern Europeans are welcomed, too, examples of negative discrimination are not common.

An interesting visit took place at the local orthodox church where the Romanian community participated in the Sunday Holy Mass. Talking to people there it appeared that most members of this community stated that they planned to stay abroad for a longer period, also bringing older relatives to stay with them. Weddings, baptism and other ceremonies are quite common, the community is growing, more and more Romanians seek connections from a larger area around Salzburg, even going as far as Passau, Germany.

The YOUMIG team also had scheduled institutional visits. They had a meeting at the City Hall with the Salzburg Municipality’s Vice Mayor, Mrs. Anna Hagenauer and with the representatives of the City Hall’s Integration Office –Integrationsbüro. They had a very useful discussion about migration-related policies and programmes of the local authorities of Salzburg. The well organized Integration Office has nine full-time employees, many of them former migrants themselves, this way language barriers are often passed without the external help of a translator. Online and printed information is available in many languages, there are materials for different target groups, such as teenagers, women, elderly, refugees or persons belonging to different minorities. In cooperation with other institutions the Integration Office organizes a large variety of programmes for migrants, some focusing on a better understanding of the Austrian legislation, local culture, norms and values. They organize walking tours, cultural events, offering plenty of opportunities for migrants to interact with local people. To improve their work in 2015 they intensified cooperation with NGOs, volunteers, migrant organizations, language schools, churches and libraries.

Fundamental ties were set up between the two municipalities, Sfântu Gheorghe and Salzburg, and as a first step, two representatives of the Integrationsbüro agreed to visit Sfantu Gheorghe during 2018 and learn more about the challenges of a sending community, to better understand the “push factors” and motivations behind youth migration from Eastern Europe. This way the staff exchange may bring valuable inputs to policy recommendations, as common knowledge and information is needed to build win-win situations.

The next part of the visit was at the ÖIF, the Austrian Integration Fund, a federal organisation, which supports the integration of immigrants. Programmes, policies and supporting materials were presented, also a wide range of partners involved in the integration process. The ÖIF offers immigrants throughout Austria support with integration issues through integration centers in several state capitals as well as mobile counselling programmes in towns. They offer language courses for specific purposes and specialised courses that are tailored to the needs of individual industries. Refugees are offered special help, like free courses and trainings, legal representation, translation services, but there are many programmes for migrants from the countries of the European Union, too. The activities of the Fund are supported by several NGOs, churches, but also by businesses. Such a partner is the Austrian Caritas, who focus mainly on refugees, and the Sfantu Gheorghe team had a very interesting meeting at their headquarters, too. They presented their programmes dedicated to women, children and other vulnerable groups and talked about the intense effect on citizens. Although the willingness of the local population to help refugees was very impressive in the beginning of the migration waves a couple of years ago, this has changed dramatically due to the way the media and some politicians treated migration-related issues.

The main objective of the visit was met, most of the scheduled visits took place as planned and the visitors gathered valuable experiences and set up useful contacts with the Austrian authorities as a result.