‘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.
Why not both?
Low birth rates —> neoliberals need workers so they increase immigration —> influx of religious zealotry fuels cultural friction.
Only that isn’t what happens. Radicalized Muslims are not moving to Europe, it is they or usually their children who join radicalized groups as a response to European bigotry.
The idea that minorities automatically become religious conservative zealots because of racism is an insult and it’s racist as fuck.
Because it offends your sensibilities doesn’t make it any less true. It is the same reason why disenfranchised white youths are prone to join white supremacist groups.
The latter also do not agree with the concept of “equal rights” either. It isn’t ‘racist’ to recognize what drives disaffected youth towards antisocial behaviour in all its guises.