Seems like Europe is turning against the Muslim community.
As a Canadian I’m curious why this is happening and what people think could be done to make for a more welcoming transition. We also accepted quite a few middle eastern refugees over the past few years and I’m wondering if there are lessons to be learned.
Canada is extremely picky when it comes to refugees. And it has the choice to be picky, because crossing the sea from the Mid-East/North Africa to Canada is hard. Even refugees from South America need to travel through the US first. So in the end, Canada gets people who are relatively well-off and well-educated and who pose fewer problems integrating.
Europe on the other hand is the natural route for Mid-East/North African refugees which due to the geographical closeness is available to a lot more people, including some from social segments below the middle class of their original country. And since the people coming to the EU tend to integrate worse, need more education and social services, there’s a tremendous opening for right-wing parties to swoop in and make claims. The EU also really needs to work on integration of new arrivals, even a country that pretends to be fairly open like Germany is partly really steeped in outmoded, hostile, demotivating processes and a mentality of not seeing refugees as people but as a burden to society.
Is there a country in the EU where the far right isn’t on the rise? I need a Backup plan in case the nazis are voted in Germany again
SVP currently holds 25% of the seats in the federal council of Switzerland. Not exactly what I’d call Nazi-free.
Portugal’s Chega party increased to 7,2 % in 2022. That’s lower than in the rest of the EU, but still an increase by eleven seats.
As a Dutchman, I’m kind of shocked. The battle seemed to be between the previous largest party VVD, the new NSC party and the labour/greens fusion. Then the PVV suddenly surged. Apparently a lot of people who weren’t sure yet ended up going with the PVV. Out of the 4 largest parties we have 3 that are right-wing and/or conservative. The PVV is far-right (though hard to place), the VVD is a neoliberal party, and the NSC is closer to the centre but also quite conservative. We’re entering dark days…
What would you say the chances are of Wilders being able to form a coalition?
Before the election I would have said unlikely, because both NSC and VVD ruled out a coalition with PVV. Afterwards the NSC already caved to “respect the choice of the voters” and the VVD also did not make a clear statement.
Anyone who thinks this shocking needs to leave their social bubble.
The European liberal left is in losing battle for their voters and their solution is pretending that nothing’s happening.
I don’t think that they’re pretending that. However, the issue is that right-wing and right-of-center parties carelessly throw around lies and half-truths that match the way people tend to be thinking anyway.
It also doesn’t matter to them that they create rather than solve issues, as long as their narrative is stable. A very recent example: Conservatives normally claim that they are in favor of having a strong and growing economy. However, German conservatives just deliberately worsened the economic outlook of the entire country by suing against the 2021 state budget. To do so, they weaponized an overly aggressive debt ceiling they themselves[1] put into place in 2009 and which they themselves ignored for most of the years between 2009-2021.
[1] Along with the Social Democrats who unfortunately have been moving further to the right for at least the last 20 years. Since Conservatives, Free Liberals and Social Democrats all voted for this debt ceiling rule at the time, it’s now part of the constitution. Abolishing that rule is now an impossibility, as the coalition would need support from a large number of Conservatives to do so.
Freedom of movement is a human right! For everyone, everywhere, in every direction!
