Resolving the The European Immigration Crisis will repair the damage brought upon the E.U. and further integrate europeans, hence securing a bright and long-lasting future for Europe.
An Article on European Integration and European Immigration By Nicholas George Donovan Grazia
Crises have pillaged Europe over the past decade, with the ongoing Eurozone Crisis the rise in extreme national populist movements and the intensifying immigration crisis, the future of Europe is uncertain furthermore the fate of the European Union is lurking in the dark. This paper argues that the imminent crisis the E.U. needs to solve is the immigration crises it faces. The rise in extreme national populism in Europe is what is truly dangerous and what is tearing the E.U. apart, but the argument made in the following paragraphs is that of solving the immigration crises to tackle and destroy the populist movements as their strongest argument throughout Europe is that of gaining votes by being against the E.U. 4th freedom of movement of people and accost a negative connotation to the word immigrant. The immigration crises needs a solution that will integrate migrants into E.U. society because Europe needs immigrants to continue “living” and and sustain its many benefits. This paper will outline the reason to first solve the immigration crisis in order to win over extreme national populism and give a solution on how to solve the immigration/refugee crises Europe is currently engulfed in.
Europe and the E.U. is worth saving, and this must be made clear to the citizens of such a union. It has taken more than half a century to create the greatest integrated system the world has ever seen. Men like Winston Churchill even though he never expected Britain to be part, vouched for a United States of Europe. The E.U. has become a role model across the globe for integration of economic and political systems that would improve international relations and reduce the causes of conflict, directing the world towards liberal institutionalism which, first coined by Immanuel Kant, will help the E.U. get wealthier and live in peace, through this nation sates will satisfy their needs by collaborating with one another. This paragraph shows my stance on the international sphere of the international arena, the view of liberalism.
The immigration crises is what is driving Europe insane and it’s the source of a number of E.U. issues that are tearing the Union apart. In order to find a solution to the crises it is important to understand it and figure out the reasons to why it has fueled a flame on crises that seem more dangerous for the fate of Europe, but the truth is that they are being fueled by the immigration crisis, hence if the immigration crisis is solved the flames will die. To break down the immigration crisis that has struck Europe, it’s important that some numbers be observed. Over the last fews years the number of immigrants that have arrived in Europe are unbelievable, “the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that more than 1,011,700 migrants arrived by sea in 2015, and almost 34,900 by land”, in Italy identified illegal immigration has grown eightfold, in Greece it has doubled, and Spain has an increase of 50% since 2014. Not only are many immigrants arriving, many are also perishing as the journey is often a treacherous one, in fact “according to the IOM, more than 3,770 migrants were reported to have died trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2015”. What this shows is the high inefficiency of the current situation of which the E.U. is attempting to solve. The crises at the moment is in a quite dire situation, and that is the reason something must change fast otherwise the Europe we know today will be no more. The numbers show the immensity of this crises, but the intensity is born due to the tensions it has produced. “Tensions in the EU have been rising because of the disproportionate burden faced by some countries”, not only but “European Union countries failed to take collective action to share responsibility equitably for asylum seekers or to create safe and legal channels to Europe”, therefore tensions are rising but due the failing management of the situation political groups are angry and fed up and states are not helping the way they are supposed to, instead they are thinking only about themselves forgetting the bigger picture, “Action requires a consensus among all 28 governments, but to varying degrees each sees the crisis through national lenses, paralysing the collective approach that is, in the end, the only method likely to achieve lasting results”. This is creating a rift between nation states and the E.U. as a whole.
Criminality is also occurring at state level, corruption is met within the government as promises are made to solve situations and care for the migrants but instead the money made available for the problems at hand are pocketed by government officials. This happened in Rome, when the E.U. would give Italy money to hand out to the immigrants as means to survive but the officials would give the immigrants less that a third and pocket the rest; a true scandal that solves nothing but rather creates more issues when none are needed.
The solution that has to be brought is not only one that will make content the government officials but also the citizens of the E.U. and that has to be one that eliminates the degrade and squalor that the poor living conditions of these immigrants has brought upon major European cities and its suburbs. The immigration crises has to be resolved in order to help the E.U. citizens to understand that the E.U. needs immigrants thus they have to stop voting and encouraging the nationalist parties, the reason these parties are succeeding is in part because people are voting for them, thus the first step to ending extreme national populism is with education.
The argument made explaining why the immigration crisis is more important to solve first rather than focusing solely on Brexit and the rise of PEP (Populist Extremist Parties) is because Immigration fuels these other issues that are dissolving Europe. Solving the immigration crises can lift the pressure sustained by both the rise of PEP’s and the Eurozone crises as integrated immigrants will benefit the European economy by ensuring the continuation of the welfare state that Europe is, and as immigrants become citizens and immigration issues are solved the PEP’s will loose popularity.
The rise in PEP’s is due to how the PEP politicians have been able to use immigration as the reason to the terror that has shipwrecked upon Europe over the past few years, one of the “factors inhibiting public awareness of the crisis is that a flurry of murderous terrorist attacks, starting in France and spreading to Belgium and Germany, has badly rattled Europeans over the past 10 months”, by spreading the fear of how immigrants might be terrorist can be a very powerful and effective strategy in fact is shows the “poisonous politics of Europe” as PEP’s tend to be xenophobic and racist in their political views. The Financial Times believes that PEP’s brainwash their supporters by telling them that islam is a menace to their national identity, Islam and many other races that enter as refugees or migrants, what the FT argues is that the crises has no simple answers but “if Europeans were to reject fear and intolerance, they might grasp that it is precisely their inability to develop a shared approach that is making the emergency so hard to control”. Europeans need to understand that to continue having the benefits of EU, Europe needs migrants; what needs to change is the way in which the crises is handled. The fuel to the raging flame of the PEP’s is that of how immigrants are depicted, “In the days since the terrorist attacks in Brussels in late March, many have argued that these tragedies—and the two attacks in France last year—have fueled the rise of Europe’s so-called populist radical right parties” and they have fueled the rise of these parties because the reality is that some of the immigrants arriving into Europe are dangerous individuals, thus there has to be a better way in which Europe admits its migrants and a way in which it can identify them.
“Populist extremist parties present one of the most pressing challenges to European democracies” and many will argue that it’s what has to be resolved, Professor Morgan speaks about how education and selective voting ~ Only educated people allowed to vote ~ would be the solution to do quiet PEP’s; that solution must take place but in order to get there there must be a better way to handle the immigrant situation that has fueled the issues all along. “Two core issues lie at the root of today’s rising populism: the challenge of migration and the lingering euro crisis” and the challenge of migration could solve the PEP’s rise but also the Eurozone crises with the solution that will shortly be presented. There is only one way Europe can overcome and it is “through increased cooperation” amongst the continent’s states. “The populist surge is partly a rational response to the apparent political failures of the established parties”, people view the crises that raid Europe as the failure of the existing parties thus are voting for something new without knowing the consequences of life without the E.U. The rise of these parties is due also to an “emotional backlash to a sense of disenfranchisement”.
The PEP’s advocate and promote racist and xenophobic behavior towards immigrants, since it is in their strategy to gain votes through shunning the fourth freedom of the E.U. ~ Free movement of people ~ they do so by going against every individual who is not native to the state itself. This teaches the youth that racism is not a crime and that it isn encouraged because in the minds of the PEP immigrants are a threat to national identity, this creates the conflict of national identity that might become intractable as identity conflicts are the hardest to resolve. “The xenophobic narratives of radical-right populists have very nasty effects in European societies by increasing social tensions and encouraging attacks on minorities” and this is step further away from integration.
The link between extreme national populist parties or PEP and the immigration crises is clear, and the reason to tackle immigration first is evident as it will cut the flow of fuel that ignites and keeps flaming the flames of issues tearing the European Union apart. This is the plan my paper makes on how to battle and solve the immigration crises that will end up silencing PEP’s and restore the E.U. making the future brighter than what it is today.
Going on in this way will result in a complete shutdown of borders when instead what ordinary people fail to understand is that Europe needs these migrants. But there must be a better way of organizing and handling this detrimental situation Europe now faces.
The solution to the problem starts with the creation of a controlled and professional immigration task force, this helps tackle the corruption dilemma that some governments have gotten themselves into as they pocket the money that is meant to be aid and assist the illegal immigrants seeking a better life therefore known as economic migrants and the refuges seeking political asylum as they flee war. The task force then would overlook and manage the project I am about to unveil.
Taxation in Europe is high due to the abundant benefits that are made available such as free healthcare, education, and etc. The plan to improve these benefits and also reduce taxes upon nationals is to have these illegal immigrants work for the public sector/Government in return for their citizenship after a determined period of time receiving low pay but guaranteed food and shelter, we will call this period The Walk. Immigrants will be given a choice, if they work and contribute to society by making themselves useful they will receive their citizenship, if they refuse to work then they will be sent back to their native land except refugees who will be, by law, taken care of. During The Walk, migrants will be required to learn a skill that will allow them to pursue jobs in the future, they will also be required to learn the native language and become accustomed with the culture of the country in which their in as well as European culture as a whole. At the end of The Walk, these people will be required to pass a test in which they show comprehension of the language and understanding of the customs and culture of the country in which they will receive citizenship and of Europe as well, failure of the test results in a prolonged Walk where they will continue working for the government and learn what needs to be learned.
The task force’s primary job is to create an identification process for everyone arriving into Europe “illegally”, this identification will allow the task force to have a better control upon each individual as well as giving them documentation and entering them into the system; we never know if the information each migrant and refugee give about themselves is honest, the identification process gives the migrant a fresh start as well as giving the E.U. a way to identify each individual. Since this is a E.U. problem, all E.U. member states must take action and aid each other; the task force will place the immigrants across all member states using a ratio system, meaning that the number of immigrants in a given city is determined by the population of nationals in that given city. There are many jobs E.U. citizens do not want to do, and these are the jobs that many migrants will end up picking up.
There will be an obvious and necessary divide amongst the immigrants themselves and that is the division of those who are educated and those who are not. Those who show documentation of a degree or have experience and expertise with a skill will be given work in that area during their Walk, and will continue their improving within that area; the uneducated and those with no skill will be taught a skill and educated at the same time. Children will be attending school, those who want to pursue education will be given the opportunity to do so and those who do not will be required to finish their secondary school diploma just like the citizens of Europe.
The scope is that during The Walk, these migrants give something back to society and at the same time integrate. As migrants and refugees embark on The Walk, they must also be treated as human beings and european nationals because within some time they will become citizens of the country in which they are in and most importantly E.U. citizens. Economic progress and prosperity must be a guaranteed and with this system the economy will be stable. The E.U. member states have a very low population growth rate, families are having less children and people are living longer lives; with that in mind Europe has many benefits for its people such as pensions and welfare. Europe needs a source of cash input to pay for all of this and with the population shrinking there is a need for immigration and that people get integrated within the system therefore they can pay taxes and guarantee the perpetuation of these benefits.
What Europe cannot be doing is keep these immigrants in a state of illegal status for years, integration must occur and Europe needs it to occur. Children born on European soil must receive automatic nationalization of the country in which they are born.
When immigrants are fully integrated through this process, the original citizens will not feel as if something is being stolen from them as the immigrants will have done something for society to gain their place in society, and the fear of dangerous people will die down through the identification process, the migrants wont be strangers to the customs as they will have learned about the state in which they integrate in and the migrants will become useful citizens by aiding the communities around them through skilled jobs they acquire and the education they receive. With this people will stop voting for PEP’s and end the threat of the E.U.’s disintegration.
This paper argues that the biggest threat is the rise of national populist groups but it can only be defeated through the solving of the immigration crises Europe is engulfed in. With the immigration crises deciphered, it then opens up the doors to solve the other existing crises bringing Europe back together and integrated the way it should be and last for years to come.
The benefits of the being in the E.U. far exceed those of being alone in the international arena. The arena pities no one and the power the E.U. hold economically and politically is something not to be played with and one state must feel honoured to be a part of. Long Live The European Union.
Work Cited
PSC 396 European Integration – Professor Glynn Morgan Lectures
PSC 396 European Integration – Professor Glynn Morgan Blog
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