Over recent weeks, there have been numerous developments with the ongoing migrant crisis, whereby boats containing Africa migrants/refugees are sailing across the Mediterranean Sea to Greece, Italy and Spain, with the former two countries having handled the largest numbers in recent years. However, the arrival of significant numbers of impoverished migrants has put a strain on the infrastructure and communities of a continent that is still convalescing after the financial crisis that started around a decade ago.
Unfortunately, over the past decade, we have seen repeated examples of European countries turning to extreme measures in response to the twin pressures of the financial and migrant crises, exacerbated by Islamist terror attacks:
- In the UK, although largely avoiding the direct impact of the migrant crisis experienced elsewhere in Europe, has nevertheless seen transformative immigration over recent decades, both within and outside of the government's control, that is deemed to have played a major role in a majority of voters' decision in a referendum to support Brexit, i.e. voting to leave the European Union. For a country known for stability and supporting the status quo, as was evidenced in other referenda held in the UK over the past decade, this was widely considered a drastic and surprising step. Relatively successful multiculturalism is also seen to be undermined by concerns over excessive immigration, and the association of the spate of Islamicist terror attacks over recent years with Britain's Muslim minorities.
- Scandinavia, a region respected within Europe and beyond for its high living standards and liberalism, has in recent years experienced attacks of its own, be it by Islamists in Sweden or by the nationalist, Anders Breivik, in Norway.
- Some argue that the instability of Europe over the past decade has allowed Russia to be more audacious in exercising its influence aggressively, be it through the annexation of Crimea or the Russia-linked poisoning incident in the UK with Russian ex-pats.
- Greece has been possibly the country hit hardest by the migrant and financial crises, with an anti-austerity government in power helping the country struggle on to recovery after years of hardship.
- Leaders campaigning on a Eurosceptic and anti-migrant platform have achieved and maintained power in various countries across Europe, particular in the centre of the continent, where politicians holding these views are in charge in Austria, Hungary and Poland, for example.
-Germany has shifted from being a bastion of stability under Chancellor Angela Merkel, with members of the public applauding migrants from Africa and the Middle East as they arrived some years ago- to one that has drastically shifted its stance, voting in an anti-immigrant party, the AfD, as the main opposition to the much weakened Chancellor Merkel, whose support has declined and currently leads a shakier coalition government.
In addition to the above, tensions have flared over the aforementioned migrant crisis, with the new populist government of Italy (a coalition of left wing and right wing parties, seemingly united only in their Euroscepticism) now bucking the previous convention of the Italian government allowing African migrants to arrive in their country from boats by now turning them away. The small island of Malta, also significantly effected by the new arrivals from across the Mediterranean, was suggested as an alternative location, which the Maltese government swiftly opposed. With many in the mainstream criticising the Italian stance of now rejecting these boats, including the centrist French President Emmanuel Macron, Spain's new left-wing government ultimately welcomed the boat to its shores instead.
Humanitarian though these gestures may be, in practice the Greek, Italian and German examples have shown the impact these new arrivals have on the population and how they have shaped their politics. Though the current Spanish and French governments may be critical of Italy's changed stance, if these countries prove too accommodating to the boatloads travelling across the Mediterranean, they may well ultimately be deposed in subsequent elections by the sorts of populists gaining in strength across the continent. Given that the former right-wing dictator of Spain, General Franco, still has lingering sympathisers in his country; while the right-wing, anti-migrant, Eurosceptic Marine Le Pen came second in the last French presidential election, populists coming to power in these countries would not be too much of a stretch to imagine.
Well-intentioned though they may, those who are supportive of the arrival of poor migrants to their countries, regardless of the scale, may ironically be those whose actions and decisions help to most effectively mobilise the far right across the continent. I hope that the warning signs are seen before more echoes of 1930s Europe are heard.
