Rosnąca rola poziomu lokalnego w kreowaniu polityki integracji imigrantów w Unii Europejskiej

The study of integration policies at the national level of individual countries has been dominant for a long time in Europe. There has been an outstanding set of comparative studies of national integration policies of immigrants. In recent years studies of integration process at the level of cities and municipalities have gained growing interest among researchers. While the European Union started its integration policy in 2003 multi-level governance in this area has become clearly relevant. In this model all three levels: European, national and local have started to play an important role in the development of frames and goals for the European approach to integration of third country nationals. This article aims at presenting the growing role of local level in integration policies and cooperation of cities’ networks with European institutions. In the new model of governance cities have started to evaluate and exchange their practical knowledge in integration policies with the European institutions by bypassing the national level.