One of the Swedish Presidency's final meetings was ‘Integration of new Arrivals - Incentives and Work in Focus', held in Malmö on 14-16 December 2009. At the meeting 150 experts from across Europe - and several also from the United States and Canada - discussed and identified indicators in the area of integration. In the future, these indicators will make it easier to compare and learn from other Member States. We put some questions to State Secretary Christer Hallerby from the Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality, who is pleased with the outcome of the meeting.

What have you achieved through this meeting?
We are very pleased that we have managed to agree on an indicator typology, common definitions, priority policy areas and a feasible selection of indicators.

What is the long-term aim?
The aim is to reinforce the European learning process. To do that we need to increase the comparability of national experiences. We have identified core indicators in a limited number of relevant policy areas in order to monitor the outcome of Member States' integration policies.

How far have you come?
The institutional framework has developed a lot lately. The Lisbon Treaty provides a new legal basis for the integration of legally residing third country nationals. And the Stockholm Programme has just been approved. This Programme includes the commitment to develop core indicators for monitoring the results of integration policies.

For the last few months, Sweden has been working on reaching a certain level of consensus on relevant policy areas and indicators.

Integration policy varies among EU Member States. How is this taken into consideration?
The background, traditions and focus of Member States' integration policies differ greatly. An important experience during this process has been to realise how difficult it is to agree on common definitions and indicators, as these reflect the context of each Member State's policy. Agreeing on a theoretical, general level is one thing. But agreeing on concrete indicators is a completely different thing.

Indicators are useful for providing quick, easily understandable signals of important developments, and to communicate developments in easy, understandable ways.

What type of indicators have you focused on?
We have focused on the outcome of integration policies. Indicators, of course, should tell us something essential about development. They should be simple to understand and easy to communicate.

In what area do you primarily want to develop indicators?
A limited number of policy areas have been identified as priority areas: employment, education, social inclusion and active citizenship. Employment is a vital part of the integration process, and efforts in education are critical to help immigrants to be successful and more active participants in society.

 What happens now?
The identified policy areas and core indicators will be subject to a further process during the Spanish Presidency of the EU and among the topics addressed at the ministerial conference in Zaragoza in April 2010. Sweden is committed to supporting the process.