We have been startled by the success of our WWW home-page . At the time of writing the number of users has grown enormously and many people seem enthusiastic about the links we have written which help people find other information on migration or ethnic relations themes in other locations. It also interesting to note that the last issue of Merger , which was the first to be included on our website, was accessed 221 times during August. This issue will also appear on our website, as will all future issues of Merger . What another observatory on racism and xenophobia could contribute clearly overlaps with this broad field.
Migrant communities are a major source of information on the monitoring of racist acts.
This observatory would combine the monitoring of migration with studies on policy, the assessment of racist actions in the EU and surveys of xenophobia and nationalism. The observatory would provide an annual report which would measure overall improvement or decline, together with a regular series of reports on a range of specialist topics. The new European Directory on Migrant and Ethnic Minority Organisations will be available very soon and orders are now being taken. There can be no denying the importance of this reference work which provides an authoritative overview on all the leading organisations in the field. Without this directory, which has more than 10,000 entries, it will not be possible to draw together the right people on any topic in the field.