MIGRATION CRISIS: EUROPEAN PUBLIC OPINION AND THE PROCESS OF THE INTEGRATION OF IMMIGRANT POPULATION

Abstract

Analyzing various, especially political and security aspects of the present migration crisis in the EU, the author has paid special attention to emphasizing the importance of European public attitude towards the immigrants. According to the analyzed scientific sources the author has concluded that the cultural stigmatization of the immigrants (together with the supremacy of western values and lifestyle) and the constant Islamophobia in Europe (not only, not even primarily, due to the influence of extreme right-wing ideology), are of crucial importance, but along with the fact that on both sides there are utmost divergent attitudes and simplified narratives, distrust and negative feelings somewhere leading to open hatred. The mentioned problems ask for indicating a large number of relevant questions: the discrimination of the immigrants in social life, provoking and triggering off extreme options, deviant and criminal behavior, the causes of uncertainty and insecurity in the time of globalization, the mechanisms of making the immigrants scapegoats. It can be noticed that the immigrant policies have been primarily led by security reasons – the process of securitization is the framework for solving the immigration issue – so, the cultural integration is replaced by political integration. It has also been pointed out that establishing the policies (with institutional support) which decrease the influence of prejudices is needed. The author asserts that the issue of the immigrant population integration (of both domicile and immigrants’ groups waiting on the EU borders) is shown as one of the central issues in all problem frames of the public debate on its character (particularly on the assumed dangers), its status, as well as on the measures that should be applied, modified or devised, and finally, on the general attitude to it. The matter of formulation and implementation (the way and range) of the measures is widely determined by the immigrant population attitude towards the publicly expressed attitudes regarding the possibility and the degree of its integration (also including radical acting, conflict events, incident situation, and especially criminal acts of its members). In other words, the formulation of the measures to the immigrant population is also caused by the immigrants’ attitude to (and not only officially) the requirements related to the integration process, which are set by the society they enter. Claiming the right to emigrate or to seek asylum, without being willing to accept the basic cultural patterns of the new social environment is not a part of the solution. The integration has its limits, which are expressed on both sides of the continuum, dividing the societies that are come from and the ones that are come into in many aspects – spacious, political, religious and cultural. A longer period, along with other positive prerequisites (especially cultural ones) is needed for the integration to take place in mutual acceptable modus. The solutions will be more and more complicated given the extent in which the immigration corpus expresses its wish to accept the rules and values of the society it is coming to, and the extent in which the domicile citizens don’t understand the particularities of the immigrant population which they already live with, as well as the reasons why individuals and very large and varied ethnic groups endeavor to emigrate to the EU.