Migration foes drive European debate

Refugee-quota critics gain notice in countries that allow fewest newcomers

In this Saturday, Sept. 26, 2015 file photo, a group of migrants, seen through razor wire, crosses a border from Croatia near the village of Zakany, Hungary.
In this Saturday, Sept. 26, 2015 file photo, a group of migrants, seen through razor wire, crosses a border from Croatia near the village of Zakany, Hungary.

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- Together, Hungary and the Czech Republic took in about 1,000 asylum seekers last year. Still, rallying cries against migration have dominated the debates ahead of upcoming ballots in the two central-European countries.

Along with Poland and Slovakia, they have become the most vocal critics of the European Union's plan to share refugees according to a quota system.

The influx of migrants into Europe has also upended the political order in many countries in western Europe, which received more than 1 million asylum seekers last year.

But analysts say it's not surprising that opposition to newcomers is at its highest in the mainly homogenous societies in central and eastern Europe.

"Migration is the issue because politically it works, and it's not surprising that it works where there are no migrants," said Csaba Toth, strategic director of the Republikon Institute think tank in Hungary.

"It may even be easier without migrants because if people met migrants too often, it's not certain that they would be able to hate them in the same manner."

Hungary has a government-sponsored referendum Sunday that seeks political support for the rejection of any future, mandatory EU quotas to accept refugees. Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government has expressed no qualms in its reasons for rejecting the mainly Islamic newcomers: It wants to preserve Hungary's Christian identity and its relatively homogenous culture and population.

"Hungary does not need this kind of intercultural mass migration that is happening at our border," government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said. "We don't want those kinds of migrants, for obvious reasons."

Only 1.5 percent of Hungary's population of 9.8 million is foreign-born, and most of them are people who moved there from areas in Romania and Slovakia, which were part of Hungary until World War I.

So far, the most noticeable countercampaign to the government has been run by the satiric Two-Tailed Dog Party, which claims on one of its posters that the average Hungarian sees more UFOs than migrants in a lifetime.

About 400,000 migrants passed through Hungary last year on their way to western Europe.

This year, the country has taken in only 331 people, down from the 545 asylum seekers recognized in 2015, according the Eurostat, the EU's statistical office.

Fences built in September 2015 on the borders with Serbia and Croatia and tougher laws against migrants entering the country irregularly have practically stopped the migrant flow traveling north through the Balkans.

Migration has also been a main theme ahead of regional and parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic on Oct. 7-8.

There, some of the new parties competing in the elections make their positions clear in their names. For example, the group "No to Illegal Immigration -- Money to Our People Instead" gathers four fringe parties with 281 candidates -- one more than the total number of refugees who applied for asylum there in the second quarter of the year.

Meanwhile, the new government in Poland has reneged on a promise made in 2015 by the previous, centrist government to accept about 10,000 refugees from Syria and Eritrea.

It pointed to terrorist attacks in France and Belgium and said its primary task was to ensure the security of the Polish people.

While it says it has received more than 800,000 Ukrainians fleeing the conflict with pro-Russia separatists, Eurostat said 695 people were granted asylum last year and 740 in 2014.

The reasons for the popularity of the anti-migrant stance in countries with few migrants and refugees include politics, history and education, analysts say, while centuries of domination by the Ottoman Turks and Austria's Habsburgs have also left their mark on the Hungarians' psyche.

"Most people have no direct experience of living together with migrants, but we learn in school that foreign powers brought oppression," says Attila Tibor Nagy of the Center for Fair Political Analysis in Hungary.

"The government is building on people's fears, the facts learned in school and anti-foreigner sentiments."

Hungary hopes that if the Oct. 2 referendum backs the government's position, it will lead to similar efforts in other countries and put an end to any mandatory EU quotas.

"We will get a very powerful weapon for Hungary to clearly veto the quota on every front," Antal Rogan, Orban's Cabinet chief, said on state television.

"If the Hungarian referendum is strong, Brussels' plans will hit a mine because opposition to the use of mandatory quotas will strengthen in many EU countries, encouraged by the Hungarian example."

There are already signs that anti-immigration sentiments are growing across the continent.

In Germany, which has taken in the largest number of migrants in the past year, Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and the center-left Social Democrats lost votes in recent regional elections to the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany.

And in the Netherlands, which received 60,000 asylum seekers last year, anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders' Freedom Party is narrowly behind Prime Minister Mark Rutte's Liberal Party in recent polls and could emerge as the largest party in parliamentary elections expected in March.

A Section on 09/28/2016

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