Europeans view immigration with increasing suspicion. Seven out of 10 Europeans believe that their country takes in too many migrants, according to a survey carried out by BVA Xsight for ARTE Europe Weekly, a project led by the French-German TV channel ARTE GEIE and which EL PAÍS has participated in, as part of the countdown to the European elections in June.
The survey shows that 85% of respondents feel the European Union needs to take more action to combat irregular migration. And only 39% believe that Europe needs immigration today.
The countries where most people consider immigration a problem are Bulgaria (74% of respondents), the Czech Republic (73%), Hungary and Cyprus (68% in both cases). Paradoxically, in Italy, the European country where the largest number of immigrants entered irregularly last year (157,652), only 44% of respondents viewed it as a problem and only 14% saw it as the main problem. In Greece and Spain, the second and third countries with the most irregular arrivals in 2023, respectively, only 11% of respondents considered it the issue of most concern to them, below the European average of 17%. However, Greece is the country where the most people (90%) believe their country takes in too many migrants.
All those countries also suffer from a huge demographic catastrophe coming in. Unless they get a massive amount of young immigrant workers to stabilise the social systems, those systems will collapse alltogether.
Sure, but in order to solve that through migration we would need good infrastructure and effective processes to properly integrate these people to our societies. Unfortunately most of these countries do not have the money, expertise nor the will to implement these things properly making them fail not only their people but the refugees / migrants as well.
These migrants also increase the need for more social security and better education as many of them struggle to find jobs due to lack of education, language skills or just general distrust/racism towards migrants. Add in the additional need for healthcare and day care services well further putting presure on social systems in verge of collapse.
Now add in the possibility that artificial integeligence will cause causing unprecedented levels of unemployment in near future and how climate change may throw a wrench in the system at any point. I just don’t see how we can solve any of these problems under the current market economy.