The Centre for Policy Studies Praxis and the Institute of Baltic Studies will co-operate to organise six discussion seminars for at least 150 people in Tallinn, Harju county, Tartu and Ida-Virumaa county. The discussions will be held in English and Russian. The discussions will focus on the aims and shortcomings of integration policies; the job market, education, equal treatment and tolerance. After the discussions, a summary report in three languages will also be compiled.

The aim of the project is to involve third-country nationals and people with undefined citizenship in working out Estonian integration policy. The discussions will also attended by Estonian citizens and specialists of various fields.

“It is important for third-country nationals like Russian nationals, for example, but also recent immigrants, to be included in discussions on issues that have a bearing on their everyday life and for their opinions to reach those who make real decisions,” Kristina Kallas from the Institute of Baltic Studies, one of the initiators of the project, notes.

“When planning integration action, we need to ask people directly what kind of problems they have encountered in integrating into Estonian society and this is the aim of these integration discussions,” Kallas adds.
The discussions are also an important input for the new Estonian integration programme, which will come into force in 2014.

The activities of the project are funded by the state via the Ministry of Culture and within the framework of the Estonian Integration Strategy 2008-2013 and the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals (EIF).