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§ Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel recognized
that multiculturalism has failed. All scientific studies show that a
significant number of Muslims in Europe are fundamentalist; and that thousands
of young European Muslims went to Syria to join ISIS. And yet, it is
insufferable to Brussels and Berlin, to hear that the people of Central Europe
have no intention of following the same path.
§ The European Court of Human Rights and the Court
of Justice of the EU have made sure, through ruling after ruling, that it is
virtually impossible to expel a "refugee" after his asylum request
has been rejected.
§ The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) defines itself as a scientific body, although in reality,
unsurprisingly, it is a purely political body. In composition,
competence or functioning, there is not a shred of science in the IPCC. Yet, in
the name of this "science", European politicians are extracting from
their people trillions in additional taxes, building pyramids
of new regulations and inflicting prohibitions in every sphere of human
activity.
On immigration, on sustainable development and on many other
subjects, the convergence between the United States and Central Europe is now
as evident as the new divide between Western Europe and Central Europe.
The European mindset is shifting. Twenty-three of the 28
governments of the European Union now have parliamentarian majorities on the
center-right of the political spectrum. Everywhere in Europe, the
"left" is on the run.
This is particularly true in Central Europe. The soon-to-be
Austrian Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz won the election on an anti-immigration
platform and is on the verge of forming a government with the right-wing
Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) which owes its own success to the same topic.
In the Czech Republic, political parties on the right now hold 157
of the 200 seats in the Parliament and tycoon Andrej Babis — "the Czech Trump" —
is set to be the next prime minister.
All in all, the "Visegrad Group" peoples — Czechs,
Hungarians, Poles and Slovaks — plus the Austrians, have voted in the most
conservative governments we have seen in Europe for almost 30 years, since the
fall of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom.
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Pictured: The Prime
Ministers of the Visegrad Group countries meet in Prague on December 3, 2015.
From left to right: Slovakia's Robert Fico, Poland's Beata Szydło, Czech
Republic's Bohuslav Sobotka and Hungary's Viktor Orbán. (Image source:
Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland)
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These people and parties have much more in common — in terms of
values, priorities,Weltanschauung — with the American Right than
with the milder Western-European right. To state, as Hungarian Prime Minister
Viktor Orbán, has repeatedly, that people in Central Europe do not want Muslim
refugees because they do not want their cities to look like Brussels, Paris or
London, is Trumpian, and in no way EU-compatible.
If we go to the bones of the contention, we see that these differing
perspectives between Western Europe and Central Europe are no mere trifles,
temporary divergences in wait of the next synthesis. They are existential. The
world view of Central Europe looks increasingly irreconcilable with that of
Western Europe and the EU. Let us focus on just two matters: immigration and
environmentalism.
The political elites of Western Europe have not only fully
embraced the concept of "no borders"; they would also dub any form of
dissent as ignorance, discrimination or racism. Merkel herself has recognized that
multiculturalism has failed . All scientific studies show that a
significant number of Muslims in Europe are fundamentalist; and that thousands
of young Muslim Europeans have departed for Syria to join ISIS. And yet, to
hear that the people of Central Europe have no intention of following the same
path is insufferable to Brussels and Berlin.
Bearing in mind that under EU law — the Dublin Regulation — these countries
have a legal obligation to welcome their "quota" of refugees, who are
overwhelmingly Muslims coming via Greece and Italy, you can understand that
Europe, that is the EU, has a real problem. It is also worthwhile to note that
the European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee has just adopted a draft EU regulation to
augment this obligation, providing that the refugees should be distributed
throughout the whole of the EU immediately following their arrival on EU soil.
The more "moderate" European Commission has proposed to
streamline and supplement the current rules with a corrective allocation
mechanism:
"This mechanism would be triggered automatically were a
Member State to be faced with disproportionate numbers of asylum-seekers. If a
Member State decided not to accept the allocation of asylum-seekers from a
Member State under pressure, a 'solidarity contribution' of €250 000 per
applicant would have to be made instead."
€250 000 per applicant! Let us say should Poland refuse a mere
1000 refugees, the penalty would be a staggering 250 million euros (which may
come as a surprise since the official ideology prevalent in the EU is that
refugees are of benefit to the economy).
Of course, everybody agrees that "asylum applications should
be processed much quicker so those in need of protection get it sooner, while
those with no right to asylum can be returned to their home country
swifter," in the words of MEP Cecilia Wikström.
The plan is unfortunately of little consequence as the EU is living under the
law of the infernal twins: the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of
Justice of the EU. They have made sure, through ruling after ruling, that it is
virtually impossible to expel a "refugee" after his asylum request
has been rejected: no collective deportation, no deportation if the country of
origin does not want its national back, no deportation if the country of origin
is not a nice democracy, no deportation pending the appeal, no
deportation if there is a medical condition, etc. All of these exceptions are
reliant upon the "refugee" not seeing fit to destroy his or her own
documents, as in that case he cannot be expelled at all.
If the US system of justice regarding immigration is, in Trump's
words, "a joke," then the
EU system is a monumental joke. "Deportation of quarter of a million
failed asylum seekers is almost impossible," said Horst Seehofer,
Minister President of Bavaria of Bavaria and reluctant ally of Merkel in her
last coalition.
"The question of deportation is a great illusion in Germany.
It is almost impossible to send back the migrants once they are in the country.
There are mass complaints against courts for deportation. In most cases, papers
are missing and without papers, the country of origin does not take people
back. In other cases, there are health certificates missing."
Central Europe, on the other hand has declared that it has no
intention whatsoever of taking its part in the extreme policies and grotesque
failure of "open borders" and forced multiculturalism of Western
Europe.
And that was before there was "sustainable
development". Self-anointed moral leader, Europe, has decided to become
the global poster boy for green policy. The past belongs to Fossil fuels; the
future belongs to renewable energy -- from the wind and sun ("our
sisters", as Pope Francis wrote in his encyclic Laudato si').
Energy transformation — essentially electric energy — has
taken on gigantic proportions in Europe. Thanks to the Energiewende,
in Germany the average family is now paying more
than twice as much for its electricity (per kW/h) as in the
US. France, the happy owner of an extraordinary nuclear production capacity,
which for decades was its only substantial competitive advantage has decided to
reduce the role of nuclear energy in its production of electricity from 75% to
50%, under the guidance of Minister Nicolas Hulot (by education photographer
and beach guardian).
There is also the exemplary instance of Belgium. Belgium's federal
government has just decided to close all
its seven nuclear reactors by 2025. Eight years! The beauty of it is that
nobody knows, at this stage, how Belgium is going to replace its nuclear
reactors. There seem to be two options: building gas plants or blotting
Belgium's land and sea with wind turbines. The first option is anathema to the
Greens and the Left in general, as Belgium would then be emitting more CO2than
now. Or, second, the wind option, which would mean that in ten years Belgian
electricity will be at least twice as expensive as now. Millions would be
condemned to energy poverty, meaning they would have to live partly in cold and
darkness, as is already the situation in Germany.
The whole concept of "energy transition" is based on the
science of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which
states in report after report that the Earth is warming because of the human
emission of CO2. European politicians regard the IPCC as a
scientific body, and the IPCC defines itself as a scientific body, although in
reality, unsurprisingly, it is a purely political body. In composition,
competence or functioning, there is not a shred of science in the IPCC.
Yet, when the IPCC publishes a report, it is in Europe as if
Science had spoken. In the name of this "science", European politicians
are extracting from their people trillions in
additional taxes, building pyramids of new regulations and inflicting prohibitions
in each and every sphere of human activity. Moreover, they stipulated in the
2015 the Paris Accord, that from then on, the West would also finance the
"energy transition" of the rest of the world, via the "Green
Fund": intending to donate $100 billion per year, from the
Western taxpayer to whole world (including China).
US President Donald Trump said on June 1st
that enough was enough. Europeans want to build International Socialism in the
name of Science? Very well, but no thank you, we are not interested. In Europe,
this decision caused the vilification of Trump as archvillian (until then he
had been regarded by the glitterati of the EU as nothing more than a buffoon).
It is now common in the highest spheres of European politics publicly to insult
the US president: "He is a climate terrorist. Millions of people will die
because of such behavior", wrote the Belgian
expert Damien Ernst on October 31, after President Trump welcomed the increase
in US coal production.
The US president may be an arch-villain in Western Europe, but in
Central Europe, he is a superhero. For years, Central European countries have
respectfully disagreed with the Green millenarianism of the EU. Still catching
up after 50 years of communism, they do not have the financial means for the
"energy transition". They see no rational reason to exchange their
cheap electricity for the most expensive electricity on Earth, with no
measurable impact whatsoever on "climate". Before Trump, they felt
alone, and weak in front of the economic (and moral) supremacy of Germany. Now,
they know they are not alone.
Of course, the European press still considers Trump to be a cosmic
anomaly. They hope that a post-Trump America will come back to the greatest
embezzlement in the history of mankind — the Paris Accord, in which Western
countries transfer vast amounts of their taxpayers' wealth to poorer countries
in exchange for promises that they will supposedly address
their carbon-emission problems in 25 years. This is wishful thinking. Climate
and energy are probably the only subjects on which Trump and the Republicans agreed
from the beginning. The exit of the Paris Accord is not the isolated act of an
unbalanced person, it is only one of the many closely aligned rulings,
nominations and deregulation making a moderate energy policy which does not
demonize fossil fuels and is open to "renewable" (intermittent)
energies as long as they are economical. If the trend persists, in 10 years'
time the electricity in countries such as Germany and Belgium will be at
least four times as expensive as in the US. And all, ironically, in
the name of "sustainable development". No ideologically-based
"science" could survive such realities; it is only a question of
time.
On mass-migration, environmentalism as on many other subjects —
such as gender or family values — the divide between Western and Central Europe
has deepened into an abyss, aggravated by the arrogance of EU bureaucrats
convinced of their own moral superiority. The European Union is a
"Union" no more, and the convergence between Central Europe and the
US is a new and massive geopolitical fact.
Drieu Godefridi, a classical-liberal Belgian author, is the
founder of the l'Institut Hayek in Brussels. He has a PhD in Philosophy from
the Sorbonne in Paris and also heads investments in European companies.