Refugee Crisis and the Rise of Nationalism in Europe

Introduction

In recent times, Europe has been faced with the biggest movement of people since the ending of World War II. The ongoing refugee crisis has become one of the main focuses on the European political agenda. In situations where there are immense linguistic, religious, social, cultural and similar differences between immigrants and the resident population, under increased migration conditions there is an increase in xenophobia and racism and the strengthening of extreme right political parties. It is visible all over Europe, even in countries where their immigration policies are not new.

Migration, prompted by multitude of reasons, namely by political conflicts, humanitarian reasons, and by globalization, given that more developed countries such as Germany are seeking new workforce due to permanent depopulation and aging of its population, is facing an increase in anti-immigrant sentiment because many opponents of globalization seek to politically act on the platform of preserving the existing ethnic and religious composition of the population.

The conditions of globalization are unfortunately not the same in all countries, and globalization does not affect equally all people. Growth of networking simultaneously entails considerable uncertainty. Globalization connects the world and contributes to economic growth, but also brings economic polarization in the world. 'Polarization is a specific process of inequality, which occurs when at the top and bottom of income and wealth distribution grows faster than in the middle'

Apart from being particularly pronounced in the areas of Africa, Latin America and Asia, polarization also occurs in developed countries, such as Italy, where there is a great income inequality between northern and southern Italy. Usseglio (2016) argues that Italy’s specific history, geography and culture have led to the many factors that play a role in the continuation of regional inequalities. Seemingly small factors, such as having the most fertile lands in the North and the isolation for so many years of the South from continental Europe have led to the disparities that can still be seen today.

The major recipient countries of refugees and migrants went through years of recession and slow growth, with constant influx of refugees and migrants. This situation is not helped by the fact that the wealth and social inequalities within the most developed countries of the world are intensifying, weakening the so-called welfare state and the social security of the majority of the population.

Perfect examples of those countries are Greece, and again Italy, which has for instance entered the recession for the third time in a decade. ‘’Italy’s economy fell into recession in the final three months of 2018, in a blow to the country’s governing radical centre-right coalition, which pledged to boost the country’s persistently low GDP growth.’’

Discussion

When talking about the reasons for the rise of this anti-immigration rhetoric and intolerance, the commonsensical argument that is used in this discourse is that more migrants equal more problems. Additionally, some instances of the governments’ inadequacies to tackle the issues that have stemmed from the refugee crisis have further strengthened the rise of nationalism. The following example can show how the general public attitude on the issue of immigration changed and developed even before the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis, and how the political and public discourse had a major impact on it.

Dekeyser and Freedman (2018) did an interesting research on how elections affect attitudes towards immigration. They analysed interviews conducted by the European Social Survey spanning from 2002 to 2015. The research assessed information from over 500 elections held in 28 European countries, with nearly 300 000 respondents. Even though the surveys were conducted in a longer timeframe, with dates of individuals’ interviews being random, some interviewed closer to the date of the elections and some further away, the research showed substantial, statistically significant average differences between responses at different distances from elections, which indicates that the elections are provoking, not just correlated with, these attitudinal changes. In other words, the researchers found that the attitude towards immigration becomes more negative as the elections are approaching.

Another key point of this research showed that the rhetoric used by the parties prior to the elections plays a major role in forming the aforementioned attitude towards immigration. Moreover, Dekeyser and Freedman point out that elections that include the highest degree of anti-immigrant and nationalistic rhetoric culminate with high levels of polarization but not the most negative overall attitudes. Elections with the highest level of anti-immigrant rhetoric appear to bring a backlash, presumably because extreme rhetoric alienates more moderate individuals. Elections with above-average anti-immigrant rhetoric are the ones associated with the highest levels of anti-immigrant sentiment overall.

Interestingly, the research showed albeit the overall sentiment is negative, individual attitudes are actually becoming more polarized, with more respondents viewing immigration either highly positively or highly negatively. Furthermore, the authors report that those negative effect remain even after the elections, but they are not perpetual. ‘’As elections recede, individual attitudes become less negative and polarized, returning to a more moderate average in the period before a new election approaches.’

A great example that provides support to this research is the case of the 2017 Dutch elections, where one of the main favourites was Geert Wilders, the founder of the populist and Eurosceptic Party for Freedom (PPV). His election program announced the exit of the Netherlands from the EU, closing borders to immigrants from Muslim countries, closing mosques and a ban on the Koran.

Geert Wilders, called 'The Dutch Trump' because of his hairstyle among other things, wasn’t far behind his idol from the United States when it comes to electoral campaign and how he spread his personal interpretation of worldwide events through Twitter. His agenda was also generally quite similar to his equivalents in France.

The only way Wilders stands out from his ideological brothers and sisters is his uncompromising position on Islam, which takes Islamophobia to a whole new level. Almost half of his one-page election manifesto, with the Brexit and Trump-inspired title “The Netherlands Ours Again”, was devoted to the “de-Islamisation” of the country, and included proposals such as the closing of all mosques and Islamic schools and a ban on the Qur’an. (Mudde, 2017)

The influence of the populists in Netherlands was so substantial that during the pre-election campaign even People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) of the Prime Minister Mark Rutte had gone to the right and began to use nationalistic tones to try to oppose Geert Wilders. Mudde goes even further to explain that Rutte wasn’t the only politician during those elections to try to use ‘’good’’ populism to try to overthrow the ‘’bad’’ one. He states that in most cases there was a lighter version of populism primarily projected towards the European elite, with elements of nativism and authoritarianism.

And in the Dutch election, the campaigns of the two mainstream right-wing parties, the Christian Democratic CDA and the conservative VVD, were both increasingly informed by authoritarianism and nativism. The leaders of both parties pretended to defend “Dutch” and even “Christian” values against an alleged threat of Islam and Muslims as well as their secular, left-wing fellow travellers. Even as a majority of Dutch people worried about healthcare and the welfare state, CDA leader Sybrand Buma and premier Rutte were defending “Christian” traditions like Easter eggs and Christmas trees and racist traditions including Black Pete.

This means that right-wing populists, even if they cannot win, affect the political agenda and positions of the conservative and liberal parties party spectrum. After the election showed that Rutte’s VVD lost some seats but remained the largest party, the democrats of Europe could feel relieved, as this showed that the populists can be defeated despite the momentum they gained at the recent times. The Politico (2017) reported that all major European leaders greeted the news that Wilders, while finished second, didn’t win most seats.

Those elections were very important because they were one of the first ones in Europe that could have had an outcome where the populist could prevail and further advance their impact on the political sphere in Europe, given that they were followed by the elections in France and Germany, which also, as before mentioned, had far right candidates whose numbers were gaining momentum on the polls as the elections were approaching.

Moreover, German elections, which have at the time been declared by some of the world media as the most important for the future of Europe, were held 6 months after the Dutch elections. Despite the fact that the shared election results of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the CSU, experienced such a serious decline, Chancellor Angela Merkel succeeded for the fourth time to win the mandate. However, her authority has obviously been diminished. BBC (2017) reports that the real winners of those elections were the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD), founded in 2013 as an anti-euro party. The party has substantially shifted its focus to immigration and Islam. For instance, leading AfD figures made extremist statements before and during the 2017 election campaign. The success of AfD, who won more than 90 seats in the Bundestag and 13% of the popular vote, shocked the political sphere. Their success is displaying another worrying trend of Germany’s division to the east and west, nearly thirty years since the unification of the two German states.

AfD had become the second political force in the east, and in some federal provinces like Saxony, they defeated Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. This shows that the East was far more fearful of migrants than the West, although their number in these parts of Germany was negligible, as T-Portal (2017) reported. AfD was able to use the Pegidian anti-Islamic movement as well in this situation and to instrumentalize fear and aggression against refugees, which was most prominent in the country's east in the first months after the outbreak of the refugee crisis.

AfD's success could be attributed to the fear of refugees, the use of loud and shocking rhetoric but also to a successful campaign over the internet. On the brim of outbreak of the refugee crisis, AFD was almost an insignificant party torn by internal conflicts, as T-Portals analyst reports. But then, the refugee crisis came in 2015 and AfD utilized the most they could have to oppose Merkel’s already criticized open door policy on migrants.

Even though their results changed the political scene, the majority of Germans did not vote for AfD, and those who voted have made it out of protest for Merkel’s immigration policies. AfD’s politics is committed to restoring the power of nation states, but is opposed to the centralist movement within the EU, as well as everything that stands for Eurofederalism.

This rise in so-called Eurobashing and Euroscepticism as a whole has taken as a wave through Europe. In some countries, especially in Poland and Hungary, there has been a great increase in nationalism and anti-European mood. Poland is the largest recipient of European funds and the only member of the EU who avoided the recession in times of crisis and enjoyed 23 years of continuous growth, according to Euroctiv (2018). Moreover, the Polish public largely supported the EU. The vast majority of Poles – 87% of them, believe that their country’s membership in the European Union is beneficial. This number is much higher than the EU average of 62%, as shown by the latest Eurobarometer survey.

However, the Polish right-wing government, led by the Justice and Justice Party (PiS), wants to change that by making European politics a threat to Polish national identity. The Party, in power since 2015, has insisted on refusing immigrants into the country and, while believing that Poland should stay in the European Union, they argue that there should be a shift of power from Brussels to the countries’ capitals in regards to decision making.

When reporting on a mass march held in November 2018 joined by more than 200 000 people, Plucinska and Florkiewicz (2018) discuss if the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) tacitly encouraged groups with roots in the fascist and anti-Semitic movements. The parade, involving far-right groups and neo-fascist activists from Italy, marked a century of national independence. The march was full with slogans and chants that raised concerns about the rise of xenophobia that coincide with the rising sentiment in Europe. The authors state that PiS claimed it rejects anti-Semitism and racism, but critics accuse it of quietly siding with the far-right.

Hungary, another country with the far-right leaders already governing, is also an example of a country that defies the established norms of the European Union and the liberal principles underlying democratic societies. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, is known for the use of nationalistic rhetoric, fiercely opposing EU’s policies on refugees and asylum seekers, and refusing to accept Muslim migrants, even proclaiming of the threat of Europe with a mixed population and no sense of identity.

As BBC (2018) reports, Orban is the leading voice among the Visegrad countries in Central Europe that oppose EU plans to compel countries to accept migrants under a quota system. The conflicts between populists and progressives in the EU have almost been institutionalized.

Conclusion

Although all of the right-wing parties are not the same, there are a number of links that connect them, such as nationalism, Islamophobia and populism, which are manifested through easy-promised solutions.

There are problems that voters want to solve, from local to national and international politics, and it is quite logical that those who seem to want to solve the problems will attract the voters. It is less important if they offer realistic solutions, and it can be very important just to acknowledge the existence of a problem, regardless of its real seriousness. This is the tactics most of the aforementioned populist, far-right parties have been using while gaining traction and popularity among voters.

Multiple research mentioned in this paper prove how the rhetoric used and the stance on immigration by the parties’ question can ignite and further strengthen the sentiment towards it, often changing the predicted course and the outcome of elections.

Any interpretation of this dramatic, if not alarming growth of the popularity and significance of right-wing parties is futile without taking into account equally dramatic influx of migrants and refugees in Europe. There is no doubt that this radical right-wing movement, which moderate conservatives and Christian Democrats do not have too much in common, is a new constant in the European politics.

The traditional European politics and the mainstream parties of Europe have been warning of the dangers of the rise of national populists all over Europe, especially given that the elections for the European Parliament are being held in May this year, and again, the media has been referring to them as election which have never been more important for Europe.

Traditional politics, however, does not offer answers to problems that populism has caused and solutions to the growing dissatisfaction of people. Globalization which played a major role in the development and spreading of the economic crisis contributes to the change of communities as well as overcoming the balance between national and global forces with influence on the working class especially.

The economic crisis further strengthened the mentioned fears of the population as well as the continued growth of unemployment in some parts, and eventually the emergence of a complete lack of solidarity between people and states. Another important element which has to be acknowledged is that the European Institutions have made some omissions and were criticized in dealing with pressing issues concerning emerging matters. There have been multiple instances where European Union's migration policy has shown the real face of inefficient bureaucracy, lost in the sea of contradictory regulations, disagreements and ad hoc measures one by one.

Nevertheless, when speaking of a refugee crisis, the administration of the European Union should be distinguished from the national governments refusing to assist refugees, as the EU still maintains a tendency against anti-immigrant policies of European sovereign states.

An example of that is when the European Parliament voted for the unprecedented disciplinary action against Hungary and Poland. Considering Hungary, the alleged breaches of EU values were, among others, concerning immigration, as Orban’s government introduced a law which made it a criminal offence for lawyers and activists to help asylum seekers, under the banner of facilitating illegal immigration, as reported by BBC (2018). Nevertheless, as pointed out by Zalan (2018), ‘’sanctions are unlikely to happen in either the case of Poland or Hungary, as both have pledged to veto punishment on the other.’’ Orban was nevertheless heavily criticized for using EU funds for its campaigns against immigrants and the EU policies.

The fact is that Western involvement in these countries dealing with the biggest influx of migrants is more often acting as a destabilizing factor than as an aid. In essence, what is happening in Europe is not just a rise of populist forces against the establishment, which the media is flirtatious with because it is an attractive news, but a rebellion of voters against political elites and political caste that, by its own immobility towards the refugee crisis, raises the state of anxiety and endangerment with masses which can be manipulated during these times.

References

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