Fear itself can be dangerous. Accompanied by horror and panic, it can induce changes in behaviour and prompt people to react to events irrationally. And there are many sources of fear in Europe. The flood of immigrants and the terrorist attacks are two of them, but unemployment is another one. As a consequence, the psychological landscape of Europe has been transformed and traditional cultural behaviours have been distorted.
In fact, the immigrants’ influx in Europe has revealed a number of serious political fault lines. Initially welcomed by many, refugees were eventually considered an anathema by many governments, which claimed that they could not deal with them logistically, that the newcomers were a threat to national identities or a risk to national security. Measures to prevent immigration (link 1, link 2) went from border controls and the closing of borders to fence building, suspension of ferry links and rail travel, spot checks on cars and even state of emergency declarations with soldiers’ deployment. [...]
According to the above table, there are two countries or regions registering the emergence of parties of the far-right in their National assemblies or parliaments for the first time in 2016: Kotleba (People’s Party Our Slovakia), whose chairman is considered a neo-nazi, positioned against the euro, and against NATO; and, in Wales, UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party), a great supporter of the Leave campaign in the Brexit referendum of 2016. In Romania, a catch-all party also emerged for the first time, getting the third place. [...]
The EU has not been doing enough. Decisions are taken in the grey towers of Brussels, with short briefings to the media, hardly reaching the common citizen. Bad or good, people do not know what Brussels decisions are about, tending to blame the institutions and their bureaucracy for all the wrong-doings and the malaise affecting their national states. And we see no real will and synergies to change the situation. The EU leaders are not giving answers. There is no vision, no credible proposals, no assurances.
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