‘Whiteness’, low youth engagement and lukewarm pro-Europeanism in some states risks eroding bloc’s founding values, expert says

Voting patterns and polling data from the past year suggest the EU is moving towards a more ethnic, closed-minded and xenophobic understanding of “Europeanness” that could ultimately challenge the European project, according to a major report.

The report, by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and the European Cultural Foundation (ECF), identifies three key “blind spots” across the bloc and argues their intersection risks eroding or radically altering EU sentiment.

The report, shared exclusively with the Guardian, argues that the obvious “whiteness” of the EU’s politics, low engagement by young people and limited pro-Europeanism in central and eastern Europe could mould a European sentiment at odds with the bloc’s original core values.

  • yeahiknow3@lemmings.world
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    3 hours ago

    There wouldn’t be any problems if the idiots in charge required some integration for civic purposes. Can’t speak French? Alas, you can’t be a French citizen. Duh. Religious zealotry? No thanks, we’ll pass. You don’t agree with democracy and free speech? Then go away.

    • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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      14 minutes ago

      Yeah it’s them immigrants causing problems with their “whiteness”!

      Your solution to a lack of diversity and tolerance of other cultures is to further squash them?

      France is already abhorrently racist as fuck, not being worse isn’t the cause here.

    • BMTea@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      What do you do if - let’s assume- integration is proven to require a generation? If you have large migrations, they will lead to ethnic enclaves, which means the strongest point of integration will be when the children of the migrants enter the education system.

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
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        2 hours ago

        What do you do if - let’s assume- integration is proven to require a generation?

        It doesn’t. Provably, so I really don’t get where you’re trying to go with this.

        It’s actually often the opposite under certain conditions (which right now aren’t that uncommon): Kids of immigrants are less integrated than their parents. Which btw isn’t a Europe vs. non-Europe thing it also happens with inner-European migration. Heck the basic mechanism also applies to e.g. inner-German migration, kid of a Bavarian couple in Lower Saxony sticks out enough to be “The Bavarian” in class.

        • Match!!@pawb.social
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          50 minutes ago

          Heck the basic mechanism also applies to e.g. inner-German migration, kid of a Bavarian couple in Lower Saxony sticks out enough to be “The Bavarian” in class.

          sounds like your society’s got a ton of racism that’s precluding the second generation from gaining acceptance

          • barsoap@lemm.ee
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            38 minutes ago

            What’s your alternative? Enforce a common culture across the whole world so that noone ever sticks out when abroad?

            Una in diversitate, not e pluribus unum.

        • BMTea@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          I am - it doesn’t seem all that apocalyptic. If you take the Syrian population, it’s a huge improvement. Besides the typical issues associated with taking a big refugee population like that, I’d say the biggest issue was that ISIS was still highly active.