TE20151212 by MrDi

Author:MrDi [MrDi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: News, The Economist
Publisher: The Economist
Published: 2015-12-10T15:59:48.955742+00:00

INTERACTIVE: European asylum, acceptance and denial

The main reason for this is clear: no one expects the migrants to stay. “They are just marching through,” says Ana Petruseva, editor of Balkan Insight, a news website. (But then, the same was true of Hungary.) Memories of refugees suffering during the Yugoslav wars may be relevant; as Ines Sabalic, a columnist, puts it, everyone in Croatia remembers when they too “lived out of plastic bags”.

Another case is Spain, where from 2000 to 2010 the number of immigrants (mainly from Latin America and Africa) multiplied sixfold to nearly 6m people, or 12% of the population. Yet attempts to set up xenophobic parties all flopped. José Ignacio Torreblanca of the European Council on Foreign Relations says Spaniards associate nationalism and racism with the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

Northern Europe, however, seems stuck in a vicious circle. As populists take up ever more room in parliaments, says Paul Scheffer, a Dutch sociologist, mainstream right- and left-wing parties must form coalitions with each other simply in order to govern. This sucks the energy out of right-left politics, and confirms the populist argument that government is a stitch-up by a clubby elite.

That is not likely to increase voters’ willingness to welcome new immigrants. But the immigrants have not stopped coming. Sweden expects over a hundred thousand more next year. They will be arriving in a country where more and more citizens do not want them.

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