By Mike Phillips

Last week, on International Refugee Day, and during the week when the European summit in Seville was debating the issue of migration, one of the more unusual events to take place in Bucharest was a symposium on the theme of "Migrants and Refugees".

It was run by the Black Education, Intercultural and Human Rights Network, a body located in Bucharest and presided over by two black doctors, Dr Mohamed Swaray and Dr Kibos Ambrose, former refugees who are also local practitioners and Romanian citizens.

In practice, and in the long term, it is inevitable that migration will alter the structure of our European societies

In a region on the margins of the EU, which has no large-scale tradition of Third World settlement, and does not possess an active tradition of liberal concern about its ethnic minorities, the activities of the network are evidence of the central place that the issue of migration has now begun to assume all over Europe.

There is, of course, nothing new about migration and resettlement in Europe. The conflicts of the 19th and 20th centuries repeatedly shifted populations and altered national boundaries.

From the middle of the last century, however, a new element entered the equation. This was the phenomenon of inward migration from the former colonies of Britain, France and Holland.

Status

The former colonials brought with them new challenges, focused around the issues of race, nationality and citizenship.

Migrants from the former colonies arriving in Europe were initially uncertain of their status. At one end of the scale they might be "guest workers" on the German model. In Britain or France they might be colonials, enjoying a temporary and limited category of citizenship.

The process came to challenge the nations' self-identity, and created the need for fundamental constitutional changes.

New British citizens must swear an oath of allegiance

In Britain, for example, during the middle of the last century to be black or brown and at the same time, British, was a declaration of colonial status. Similarly, for the white natives of the UK, "British" signified colonial ownership - being British was being part of a constitutional hierarchy over which the Britons exercised an exclusive dominion.

But this identity was threatened and finally destroyed by the inward migration of former colonials. The process took 50 years, but the constitutional changes, and the various tranches of legislation, which took place as a response to the two decades of Afro-Caribbean and Asian migration changed the way Britons saw themselves.

From the mid-60s onward, Britain entered a post-imperial phase. "British" began to mean citizens of the UK rather than subjects of a worldwide colonial empire.

The recent successes of anti-migrant and nationalist parties in France and the Netherlands can be seen as a replay of the '60s and early '70s in Britain

From the following decade, the acquisition of UK citizenship required a formal declaration, which also meant that every UK citizen, including those who, only a few short years before, would have failed to recognise themselves as Britons, could lay claim to "Britishness".

This British decoupling of ethnicity and nationality permits an inclusive, constitutional account of citizenship, which has offered other nations across the European spectrum a model for tackling the problem.

The recent successes of anti-migrant and nationalist parties in France and the Netherlands can be seen as a replay of the '60s and early '70s in Britain. At that time, Enoch Powell's populism appeared, for a time, to be a major threat to the stability of the country's political culture.

In comparison, apart from isolated pockets of deprivation, the full blooded anti-migrant policies of the National Front have little electoral appeal in present day Britain.

Outstanding issues

However, while it is clear that the emergence of a more liberal and inclusive definition of citizenship and nationality across the continent is only a matter of time, issues of privilege, equality and communal harmony remain to be solved.

Politicians will continue to make populist appeals about the need to defend the primacy of the majority culture. But in practice, and in the long term, it is inevitable that migration will alter the structure of our European societies.

In my area of North London last week British Turks drove through the High Street in a long procession of cars honking their horns and celebrating the victories of the Turkish team. From the windows they flew the Turkish flag knotted together with the Union Jack.

It was a symbolism that was clear and welcome to everyone in the street, signalling a new stage in the European adventure of migration.