Is this how "Europe" ends?If this sounds a bit like one of those nefarious designs articulated by The DOOMMM Club over the last few years on Facebook, you are right. But this one doesn't come from The DOOMMM Club, but from the top echelons of Europe's political power.
The Germans, founders and funders of the postwar union, shut their borders to refugees in a bid for political survival by the chancellor who let in a million migrants. And then -- why not? -- they decide to revive the Deutschmark while they're at it.
BY ALASTAIR MACDONALD AND NOAH BARKIN (Reuters, Jan 18 2016) {
That is not the fantasy of diehard Eurosceptics but a real fear articulated at the highest levels in Berlin and Brussels.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, her ratings hit by crimes blamed on asylum seekers at New Year parties in Cologne, and EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker both said as much last week.
Juncker echoed Merkel in warning that the central economic achievements of the common market and the euro are at risk from incoherent, nationalistic reactions to migration and other crises. He renewed warnings that Europe is on its "last chance", even if he still hoped it was not "at the beginning of the end".
Source = End of Europe? Berlin, Brussels' shock tactic on migrants }
Just to make sure, from the beginning our bet with the Muslim immigration in Europe was not on a Muslim takeover of Europe as such, but on the rise of far right anti-EU forces threatening to unravel the project of the United States of Europe aka European integration.
Now the leadership seems to have suddenly woken up. Even more remarkable is the fact that they seem to mean business. Germany has already threatened Algeria/Morocco with suspending development aid in case these two refuse to repatriate back those of their migrants who are considered subject to deportation, while German police was reported to have carried out numerous arrests among North African migrants. Both countries are now scheduled to be soon included in the list of "safe countries of origin". That is, there's going to be no political asylum.
These new developments introduce some uncertainty into our original scenario. If the authorities can deport a large number of migrant offenders and effectively instill fear in and suppress the remaining trouble makers among the migrant population, this may go some way in calming down the anti-immigration backlash. We will have to wait and see.
In one respect, however, The DOOMMM Club still remains one step ahead of the elites. If there is radicalization on the right, it's very likely to be followed by radicalization on the left. In fact, this is one is not just likely to happen, it's probably already happening.
The real question here is whether this polarization can mainstream from the fringes, undermining the center and polarizing European societies the American style.
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