Is Europe Losing Control Over Its Destiny?
A selection of quotes and commentary about the consequences of untrammeled immigration to Europe from the Muslim world.
Is Europe Losing Control Over Its Destiny?
Soeren Kern | Gatestone Institute | September 13, 2015
The European Commission, the powerful administrative arm of the European Union, has unveiled a controversial plan that would compel EU member countries to accept 160,000 migrants and refugees from the Middle East and North Africa.
The move by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels to force European countries to throw open their borders — and to require them to provide migrants with free clothing, food, housing and healthcare for an indefinite period of time — not only represents an audacious usurpation of national sovereignty, it is also certain to encourage millions of additional migrants from the Muslim world to begin making their way to Europe.
The migration proposal, announced on September 9, would “share” 120,000 migrants currently holed up in Greece, Hungary and Italy with other countries in the European Union. This number is in addition to previous demands by the European Commission that 40,000 Syrian and Eritrean migrants be relocated from Greece and Italy.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose open-door immigration policy is partly responsible for fueling the rush of migrants to Europe, has already warned that the European Commission’s plan is “merely a first step” and that Europe may have to accept even bigger numbers. German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said that Germany could take 500,000 migrants annually for “several more years.”
It remains unclear just how many of the migrants arriving in Europe are refugees fleeing warzones, and how many are economic migrants seeking a better life in the West. Statistics show that of the 625,920 people who applied for asylum in the European Union in 2014, only 29.5% were from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
German officials have admitted that 40% of the migrants arriving in the country in 2015 are from the Balkans, including Albania, Kosovo and Serbia, which implies that at least half of those arriving in Germany this year are economic migrants fleeing poverty not war.
Critical observers are describing the migration chaos engulfing Europe in apocalyptic terms: an “unstoppable demographic revolution,” a “total Armageddon scenario,” and an “exodus of biblical proportions.”
What follows is a selection of quotes and commentary from a variety of political leaders and opinion-shapers in Europe and elsewhere about the consequences of untrammeled immigration from the Muslim world.
