The selection of the new President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to attribute the title “Protecting Our European Way of Life” to one of the portfolios of the new Commission, created and continues to create tensions in the EU institutions.
When the Commission President herself was asked to justify her choice on this issue, she argued that article 2 of the Lisbon Treaty (known as the Reform Treaty which is in force on 01 December 2009 and amends the founding EU Treaties) states that the EU relies on the values of respect, freedom, human dignity, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights along with the rights of migrants.
It is prohibited by intellectual property law or in any way illegal use of this article, with heavy civil and criminal penalties for the offender.
But there were not few who disagreed with the choice of the new President of the European Commission. Given that Mrs. von der Leyen is politically part of the German Christian Democratic Party (CDU), she has essentially adopted the expression “European way of life” which is used in the last years by the Christian Democrats and the European People’s Party. In this way, representing the Commission’s new President, the most conservative views in the EU.
The reactions are due that under the expression “European way of life” is hide various aspects of racism and extreme right-populism.
Racism in the 19th century and 20th century in Europe was formulated with the theories of the superior race that must be socially and culturally above the inferior tribes, justifying the European policy of colonialism, slave trade and discrimination that the then major European powers used.
In today’s time, both racism and the far-right populist rhetoric has mutated and uses as a “vehicle” the different cultures that are not necessary to coexist, indicating that migrants and refugees do not want to be adapted to the “European way of life”.
Often, when reference is made to European culture and lifestyle, is referred to the ‘Jewish-Christian culture’ so that Islam is excluded from this civilisation. Any immigrants coming from countries other than ‘Western’ stereotyping country e.g. N. Africa, Turkey, Syria, Afghanistan, etc., have no place in the ‘European way of life’.
The populism extreme right in Europe has succeeded through its rhetoric on issues of identity and defence of the “European Way of life” to be adopted by the majority of the major European political parties, coupled with the absence of an integrated and common immigration policy in EU are afraid of their great leaking voters to the extreme right parties.
The consequence of this is the EU’s hardening both in terms of the acceptance and establishment of migrants in the EU member-countries and in the conditions of granting asylum.
In fact, the adaptation of the propaganda of the European extreme right about the ‘European way of life’ by the other parties, manages to highlight as “European way of life and culture” the model of “Western and white Europe” hiding under the carpet its versions such as colonialism, antisemitism, fascism, Nazism and communism.
But all the civilizations and lifestyles that they represented have been historically proven to renew themselves and managed in this way to survive over time through successive waves of migration that carry different cultures by grafting this way the receiver’s cultures. Cultures that were not renewed due to their close-up from the rest of the world were stagning in history, gradually erasing. The same could apply to Europe.
It is a different matter the creation of a common immigration policy that will be applied by every member-country in Europe and another matter for Europe to gradually transform into a fortress (close-up) that will be difficult to comprehend other cultures with aim to continually renew itself in order to always defend its European values such as democracy, the rule of law, solidarity and dialogue.
