"How Should Europe Treat Foreigners?
by
Nigel Harris
Europe is in one of its sillier moods at the moment where complacency and xenophobia are served up as the common wisdom on how to receive immigrants.
On the 24th of March, the Interior Ministers of the six largest EU members met together to pontificate on what foreigners must do if they want to work or settle in Europe – they must “integrate”.
To prove their “integration”, immigrants might be required to sign a contract showing they know what “Western values” are, they can speak the language of the country they wish to go to and they know its “institutions”. The Ministers did not say what was to be done with the Europeans themselves, a majority of whom almost certainly could not name a set of Western values and might be hesitant on “institutions”. But the immigrants – if they contradict “Western values “- can be expelled."
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