Europe is struggling with an identity crisis, Csaba Dömötör, the state secretary of the Cabinet Office, said at the Bálványos Summer University in Baile Tusnad /Tusnádfürdő, in central Romania, on Wednesday.
“Europe is still the best place in the world,” Dömötör told a podium discussion on the future of Europe, adding, at the same time, that the continent was facing an identity crisis fuelled by a decline in birth rates and what he said was the relinquishment of European culture.
He said
Europe’s identity crisis had been brought to the surface by the issue of migration and deepened by “the fact that it is hard to engage in intelligent dialogue about migration due to expectations of political correctness”.
The state secretary said Europe’s loss of confidence in its identity was also reflected by the fact that it was “the only continent in the world to have left its doors open to immigrants”.
Citing data from the EU’s border management agency Frontex, Dömötör said 3.5 million illegal migrants had entered Europe since 2009, which he said had altered the ratio of immigrants to native Europeans. He also cited a projection by the research institute Q Research estimating that Europe’s Muslim population could treble by 2050. He named the emergence of parallel societies and secluded “no-go zones” as consequences of mass migration.
Citing data from Germany, Dömötör said
the migrant crisis was also hard on member states’ budgets. In 2017, Germany spent 20 billion euros on handling migration, compared with 9.3 billion on family subsidies.
He said the emergence of migrants had also hurt public safety. The number of registered assault crimes in Germany doubled from 2014 to 2015, and 40 percent of the crimes were committed by non-German citizens, he said.
Dömötör said 70 percent of Europeans are concerned about migration, adding that the issue is expected to be a central topic in the run-up to next year’s European parliamentary elections.
Source: MTI
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Hungary officially resigned from the UN migration treaty. On 24.07.2018, the Hungarian government informed the United Nations that it would put an end to the consent procedure of the global pact for migration, said the Hungarian minister of Foreign Affairs Minister Péter Szijjártó. It has become clear that the differences in opinion of Hungary on the migration and how the UN act is incompatible, Szijjártó said at a press conference. Hungary will maintain its position and no global package can change that, he added. We look at migration processes from a different perspective, he said. The UN believes that migration is inevitable and useful and worth supporting, while Hungary considers it a threat to Hungary and Europe, he added, saying that the UN’s goal would be to promote migration. while Hungary’s goal is to stop it. The ‘Global Compact for Migration’ contains some welcome targets, such as measures against people smugglers, but the effect will even be beneficial for them, he said. A document that promotes migration will only benefit people smugglers because they can persuade more people to leave and tell them that they are being accepted in accordance with the global agreement, Szijjártó said. The Hungarian position is that it would be unnatural to change the population of the continent and instead global efforts should be made to stop the migration, he said. The migration agreement contains certain obligations which Hungary would not fulfill, such as the organization of training for migrants before their departure and after their arrival, the support of migrants in the filing of objections, the increase in the absorption capacity for migrants and the border crossing to be regarded as a human rights instead of a security problem, he added. Hungary has introduced ‘exact opposite measures’ to ensure the safety of citizens, Szijjártó said. In answer to a question, he said that given the fact that the US had not even participated in the talks on the global pact for migration and ultimately expressed dissatisfaction at the end of the talks, Hungary would not suffer any negative consequences from its announcement.
Source: http://unser-mitteleuropa.com