The Future of Common Europe: Crosscultural Conflicts and Migration Policies in the EU
The article covers the analysis of cross-cultural challenges currently emerging in the European Union and threatening the political and spiritual unity of Europe. The author deals with psychological, social and political factors leading to cross-cultural conflicts and impeding their resolution. These essential factors include a complicated migration situation over the recent years, the imperfection of EU's migration policy and impossibility to implement a comprehensive value system in a multicultural space. An already complicated situation is exacerbated by the fact that the crisis of common European political and administrative structures that failed to timely resolve the refugee problem leads to the return of marginal far-right and nationalist parties on the European political arena. In ordinary circumstances such organizations could not have counted on voters' support, but the mistakes and failures of the politicians in power as well as the tough and uncompromising rhetoric give them a certain chance for success. In their turn the representatives of migrant communities justifiably refer to a negative and sometimes even hostile attitude on the part of “indigenous” Europeans, which hardly helps to mitigate the existing situation and overcome the crisis. The author thinks that intercultural conflicts overall emerge as domestic conflicts. These are not the conflicts between competing political forces but between ordinary people. But it is this circumstance that makes them dangerous and hard to resolve. People who are already frightened easily yield to the rudest and most agressive propaganda if it promises them a safe and secure life. Under such conditions an attempt to create a system of “European” values can be seen as a pretext for an enmity between Europeans and representatives of other cultures.