Alexey Malashenko about migrants: Eastern Europe is horror-stricken

“There already are lots of Muslims in Europe – 25 million, 30 million or even 40 million. The Europeans’ efforts to assimilate them have failed just like their multiculturalism policy,” expert of the Carnegie Moscow Center, Islamic studies scholar Alexey Malashenko said in an interview to EADaily.

“And now they are facing a new wave of immigrants. What should they do with them? How should they meet them? Perhaps, if they welcome them and are compassionate, those people will be grateful and will become less demanding. If they see that they are not unwanted, perhaps, they will start accepting the rules. For most of us, this looks like utopia. But what if the current problems will make locals and immigrants closer to each other? The Germans and lots of Christian communities in Europe believe in this and are ready to welcome the refugees,” says the expert.

“Of course, many of them hope that things will come round but they will not. Today the Eastern Europeans are horror-stricken, but there is no way for them to avoid this wave. So, they better prefer flexibility to hostility,” believes Malashenko.

EADaily reminds that in Apr 2015, following a new wave of immigration from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the European Parliament approved special refugees quotas for the EU member states. Later the EU leaders fixed a total quota of 120,000 refugees for the EU. The Eastern European members were displeased. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Czech President Milos Zeman, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and some other Eastern and Southern European leaders refused to receive refugees. Greece has already received 30,000 immigrants from Turkey and the Balkans, while Hungary received 50,000 refugees in August alone.

Unlike them, German leader Angela Merkel has agreed to receive 800,000 refugees but now that the Germans have no shelters for all refugees, they are forced to place them in whatever facilities they have. 21 refugees have even been sheltered in the former concentration camp in Buchenwald.