Prague, Oct 6 (CTK) – The present migrant crisis has underlined the problem of increased xenophobic moods especially in Central and East European countries, Michal Koran, deputy director of the Institute for International Relations (UVM) in Prague, has told CTK.
But Koran said the silent majority does not succumb to an anti-migrant hysteria.
The European Union has seemed helpless face to face with the refugee crisis so far, but the situation would be much worse without the EU, Koran told CTK.
“I don’t want to even think what the solution to the present situation would be like if there were no EU,” he said.
What would Italy, Greece and other countries facing an influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees do if they did not feel at least an elementary support from the EU? Koran said.
It is noteworthy how many times the EU is condemned, but it is expected to provide aid at the same time, he added.
The EU has not been built to deal with urgent problems, Koran said.
The European integration has been a project of a limited circle of European political and intellectual elites and influential economic and industrial fields from the very beginning, he said.
Koran appreciated the role of the Visegrad Group (V4) consisting of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia that proved to be a moderating platform, without which the situation in the region would be much more tense due to the economic crisis, the refugee crisis and the geopolitical crisis between Russia and Ukraine.
But he said tectonic processes such as the petrification of the anti-democratic politics in Hungary may be going on under the surface, which not even the Visegrad Group can compensate.
