Europe is experiencing its greatest dilemma since setting out on the European project. With human rights, democracy and freedom as its political and constitutional identity, Europe has been forced to reconsider its strategies in order to defend itself and protect its citizens. Politicians continue to alter the local, regional and communitarian system, placing legal barriers – and much more – in front of non-EU immigrants. This puts the community’s ethos (??s? ?o?s) at jeopardy and the fear of the other is changing irreversibly the acquis communautaire, the legal corpus, that has taken years to create. The panic and weakness of our political leaders has not reassured the people and nor has there been any evidence of reason or dignity in the search for solutions. The extreme reaction has weakened us all and has undermined Europe’s political aspirations to be a major global player. The difficulty of assimilating a large number of migrants with strong cultural identities of their own and who share a different religion from the majority of the native population, also presents a challenge to unity. The migrants are accustomed to an anthropological political dialectic of dominated/dominant that is different from the European reality. Marginalisation and social exclusion will only increase as a result of the lack of assimilation policies, as will xenophobia.

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