EP election results indicate a European awakening - opinion

While the European People’s Party (EPP) was victorious in the European Parliament election earlier this month, far-Right groups made major gains across the bloc, reflecting a decline in the popularity of Left and Center parties who had, apparently, been unaware of the Islamic revolution taking place in their countries.

Governments of states such as Germany, Spain, Belgium, England, Norway, and Sweden had opened their doors to wolves in sheep’s clothing as they welcomed refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), and more. These European countries have been footing the bill for extended Muslim families to create communities and settle in areas where they could feel at home.

However, Muslim immigration to Europe has wrought demographic changes in areas occupied by immigrants who have no intention of integrating into Western society. The dominant language in these areas is Arabic, and the law they are blatantly attempting to spread throughout their host countries is sharia. Mosques are built apace as local businesses and politicians court the increasing Muslim population. 

Center and Left parties, who believed that winning over the Muslim immigrants would increase their electoral power, were bitterly mistaken. The question was not if, but when, committed citizens would awaken and understand that they were losing their country and its character. Certain imams are now declaring that their intention is a takeover of Europe, which they have been patiently planning. 

The polite Europeans, who were both in need of cheap labor and felt sorry for those fleeing war zones in Asia and Africa, thought they had caught two birds with the proverbial single stone. 

A senior Dutch immigration official told me that until a few years ago, Muslim women were even allowed to have their passport photos taken showing only their eyes. This loophole allowed thousands of passports to be reused, increasing illegal immigration.

Countries that have encouraged waves of immigration are now forced to increase their police force allocation. Cities in Belgium have become global drug distribution centers.

Crime rates in Edinburgh and Marseilles are among the highest worldwide. Malmö, where the Eurovision Song Contest was held, is a majority Muslim city where crime and violence are rampant and unhindered. Entire areas have begun to be evacuated of their original residents, whom police have failed to protect.

HAMAS’S OCTOBER 7 massacre in southern Israel sent shock waves throughout Western Europe. The joyous celebrations of the shocking massacre by Muslim immigrants and their calls for the eradication of Israel have been the cause of a change in public opinion in countries that until recently had accepted illegal immigrants, many of them Muslim, with open arms. 

Illegal entries in Europe surge

This year, for the first time since 2015, the number of illegal entries is expected to exceed the million mark. The EP electorate’s surge in support for right-wing parties indicates that patience has run out, and immigration laws need changing. 

German Chancellor Schulz is dealing with the results of former chancellor Angela Merkel’s policies, which allowed for a burst dam of legal and illegal immigration to wash over Europe.

Until recently, Sweden attracted the greatest number of refugees and asylum seekers from the Middle East. In the last elections, however the far-Right Sweden Democrats led by Jimmie Åkesso (based on the concept of “democratic nationalism” and social conservatism) became the second largest party in the country. 

After October 7, the government announced the cancellation of generous welfare payments to non-European immigrants. Last week, Åkesso called for a halt to the construction of new mosques in Sweden, and for the destruction of existing ones – identifying them as the source of antisemitism evidenced in the streets.

In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’s right-wing anti-immigration Freedom Party surprised pollsters and the entire continent by gaining 37 seats in the EP, with votes motivated by the promise of a “war” on political Islam and illegal immigration.

In Finland, the new government incorporated the far-Right Finns party last week and closed its border with Russia – despite the risk of interstate conflict – because Moscow had sent several dozen African asylum seekers on bicycles to border points. 

In Spain, in a blow to the extreme Left and to the PSOE, the party of socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the Center-Right Partido Popular won 22 seats in the EP, out of the 61 allocated to the country. 

This follows last month’s request by the Spanish Foreign Affairs Ministry that ministers refrain from using the term “genocide” in connection with the war in Gaza, since official use of such terminology would force the state to open its doors to up to two million Palestinians. 

THE DESIRE to emigrate from the Gaza Strip is not new. A September 2023 report by Meir Amit Information Center for Intelligence and Terrorism stated that since Hamas’s bloody 2007 takeover of Gaza from the rival Palestinian Authority, some 250,000 young people have left the Strip. 

Their initial stopover is Turkey, on the way to other destinations, mainly in Europe and Canada. This matter made headlines last September after violent clashes broke out in front of the Gazan travel agency authorized to issue visas to Turkey. 

The most prominent reasons for emigration before the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war were: lack of hope among the young due to high unemployment, scant prospects for university graduates, the collapse of the private sector, the high cost of living, the lack of a social care policy and the low level of services, especially in the mental health sector. 

Recently, 18,000 immigration applications to Turkey were received in a single week. Currently, 83,000 people are on the waiting list to leave the Strip through the Rafah crossing. 

Last month, CBS News reported that the Biden administration is considering accepting Gazans into the United States. Such immigrants would have to prove that they have family members living in the US as citizens and would have to undergo extensive background checks.

Coordination with Egypt would be required, as this neighboring country would have to host the Gazans while undergoing investigation for candidature to immigrate. 

Will Egypt cooperate with the US? We will have to wait and see. 

The writer is CEO of Radios 100FM, honorary consul of Nauru, vice dean of the consular staff, and vice president of the Ambassadors Club.