Prague, Dec 9 (CTK) – The current migrant crisis is not only one of many, but it is much more fundamental and essential, former Czech president Vaclav Klaus said at a press conference on the occasion of presentation of a book called Movement of Nations that he wrote with Jiri Weigl.
Klaus accuses Europe and its representatives of the crisis.
He said he and Weigl, managing director of the Vaclav Klaus Institute, were prompted to write this “brief manual for comprehending the current migrant crisis,” as the book´s subtitle reads, by the misinterpretation of the current migrant crisis.
He said European elites belittle it. “We consider almost scandalous the way in which the debate on this fundamental phenomenon of our lives is waged. It is a problem that has immediately turned into an ideological clash,” Weigl said.
The elites only consider unconditional agreement to be acceptable, he said.
Klaus also alerted to what he sees as a false interpretation of the suffering of the migrants by media, particularly television. He said people can see on the screens the “travel” hardship of the migrants which is by no means connected with their suffering in their native countries.
Klaus said it is necessary to distinguish between the common individual migration and this year´s “march of migrants.”
“These are qualitatively different things. Arguments about so-called compassion have nothing in common with this mass migration at all,” Klaus said.
Weigl said dozens of millions of people from a culturally different environment may come to Europe within a couple of years.
“Europe will change in a way that we do not dare to predict now at all,” he said and added that no one is dealing with the question of how to stop the migrants´ influx.
Klaus said it is nonsensical to believe that the migrants could benefit Europe economically and demographically. This year´s transfer of migrants is a problem of Europe, not of the the Near East and the Middle East.
The main European opinion stream, symbolised by German Chancellor Angela Merkel comprehends the mass migration to Europe positively, Klaus said.
He said the European elite in a way initiates and supports the migration. This is also due to the impatience of political representatives to see Europe united into one European people.
“The European multicultural elites are always dissatisfied with that they are unable to sufficiently break up the European nations. They believe that if they mixed them up with the migrants who have no roots in European countries, this will be a chance for an artificial unification of the continent,” Klaus said.adi.
Klaus and Weigl said the existence of European interests prevents the EU member countries from protecting their own borders by themselves.
Weigl said it is not clear from the debates about the need to close Schengen that have accelerated since the terrorist attacks in Paris what this precisely means.
It is not clear whether it is really an attempt to stop the migrants´ influx, or a mere securing of their safe and organised transfer to Europe.
“If the latter point of view wins, the only way to take is to leave Schengen. I do not dare to guess which position will win,” Weigl said.
ms/dr
