IMPACT OF IMMIGRATION ON EUROPE AND ITS APPROACH TOWARDS THE MIGRATION (EUROPEAN UNION STATES VS VISEGRAD GROUP COUNTRIES)

Abstract

The current European refugee crisis is first and foremost a humanitarian crisis. This article addresses the difficulties the European Union (EU) faces in building a proper Common Migration and Asylum Policy. The author argues that the problem here lies in the different approaches towards migration held by EU member states. Different migratory traditions are one of the key issues related to the misunderstanding among the states. Their approaches are determined by their geographical locations and migration histories. The member states use the same concepts and terms when discussing migration; however, the meanings of these concepts and terms are not equivalent, as each state uses them differently. The main aim of this article is to analyse, compare and, hopefully, to give some clarity to the positions held by the most of EU member states and particularly the Visegrad Group countries (V4). Even though apparently, they hold opposite positions towards migration, the study finds that they share some common features such as a denial of being an asylum country and the absence of a related public policy. Probably the most important conclusion has to do with the fact that these two group of countries are appealing to a selective solidarity principle" depending on the circumstances.

Headnote

The current European refugee crisis is first and foremost a humanitarian crisis. This article addresses the difficulties the European Union (EU) faces in building a proper Common Migration and Asylum Policy. The author argues that the problem here lies in the different approaches towards migration held by EU member states. Different migratory traditions are one of the key issues related to the misunderstanding among the states. Their approaches are determined by their geographical locations and migration histories. The member states use the same concepts and terms when discussing migration; however, the meanings of these concepts and terms are not equivalent, as each state uses them differently. The main aim of this article is to analyse, compare and, hopefully, to give some clarity to the positions held by the most of EU member states and particularly the Visegrad Group countries (V4). Even though apparently, they hold opposite positions towards migration, the study finds that they share some common features such as a denial of being an asylum country and the absence of a related public policy. Probably the most important conclusion has to do with the fact that these two group of countries are appealing to a selective solidarity principle" depending on the circumstances.

Key words: immigration; refugees; European Union; Visegrad Group; quotas.

1IMMIGRANTS IN EUROPE

Immigration is deeply rooted in European history. When considering the social impact of immigration, literature on the economies is widespread, however, even here, there are still various areas waiting for further investigation. In addition, the diversity of legal and organizational frameworks makes a comparison between European countries difficult. The economic transitions underway are influenced by immigration. This is the case in the labour markets, concerning job opportunities, unemployment, incomes, formal and informal activities, sectoral divisions, trade orientation, competition, as well as import and export. Immigration is changing the patterns and sizes of consumption. Immigrant small businesses and ethnic entrepreneurship are playing an increasing role.

Immigrants have had an impact on the cultural contexts in European societies in various ways. One obvious area concerns the changing food production and consumption patterns. Another area concerns sports. The impact becomes obvious when one looks at the activities of immigrants in amateur sport associations and clubs, but also when one analyses the impact of immigrants on the professional sports industry. A third area concerns fashion. Every day, cultural change takes place with regard to fashion, and immigration has influenced the changes in the last decades. Immigration clearly has an impact on the political discourse in European societies. As a prominent example, the political participation of immigrants has been debated in the context of awarding voting rights in most of the European countries. This includes creating institutions of participation, including parliamentary and advisory instruments for migrants. A wide variety of civil society institutions and migrant selforganizations have facilitated the political participation of immigrants as well. Systematic research is still lacking with regards to the political participation of immigrants in trade unions. To sum up, European societies have changed obviously under the influences of immigration and migrant settlement.

The migration processes since World War II are quite complex, especially when looking at them from a European perspective. Of course, guest worker and postcolonial recruitment policies, irregular immigration, refugee flows and the mobilization of migrants from all over the world all play their roles in forming the history of migration in Europe and in the individual countries (European Migration Network 2006; Glitz 2012).

One of the recent wave of movements in Europe (before the refuge crisis) was mainly internal, and triggered by the expansion of the European Union towards the former Central and Eastern European countries. European legislation foresees that citizens of countries that join the European Union can freely move across those countries. However, pre-existing member states may impose, during a seven-year transition period, limitations to the employment of citizens of newmember countries (Dustmann et al. 2003). "After EU accession of eight Central and Eastern European countries, plus Malta and Cyprus on May 1, 2004 the UK, Sweden and Ireland allowed citizens of the new accession countries to work in their labour markets immediately, which lead to sizeable movements from particularly Poland into these countries. It is estimated that between 2004 and 2008, Poland experienced the net outflow of over 300,000 citizens, or about 1% of the total population" (Dustmann and Frattini 2012, 8). Although new EU citizens were allowed to freely travel to these countries, taking up an employee job was illegal, and led many new accession citizens to engage in illegal work relationships.

Further, continuing conflicts around the world (in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan) and improved travel and information technologies dramatically increased the pressure on Europe's Southern borders, with countries like Italy and Greece receiving large inflows of asylum and illegal immigrants, many arriving by boat on largely uncontrollable sea borders.

2MIGRANT CRISIS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Since the Arab Spring began a flood of human trafficking vessels have attempted to land on the tiny island of Lampedusa, lying just 70 miles north of the North African coast. The United Nations estimated more than 32,000 migrants would have journeyed to southern Italy in 2013 by using this area, but as we know the reality was different and the number of migrants have been much higher. On October 3, 2013 an overcrowded fishing boat capsized, killing 366 people. This tragedy should have kept illegal immigration at the forefront of discussion within the European Union and it was just a beginning of problems of the European continent and its effort to handle the immigration crisis. This tragedy was proof that illegal immigration had become an unavoidable outcome of the EU's impervious immigration posture. The European community acknowledged the despair and the unbearable living conditions of the immigrating population and wished to prevent any future humanitarian disasters.

Italy, like other European states along the Mediterranean is prone to illegal immigration, given its geographical proximity to North Africa. Mediterranean states represent major border crossing points for African migrants fleeing political and/or socio-economic instability in their native countries. By keeping its national borders secure, Italy therefore also prevents EU borders from being crossed. As a result, immigration policy is no less a matter of a national concern than a supranational one. The illegal immigration crisis must be recognized as an issue of joint responsibility by EU members and particularly by those signatories of the Schengen Agreement.

The European Commission took the importance of the issue into consideration over the last years. The financial burden of short and long-term policies to secure European Union's coastline could not be borne solely by Italy and Greece. Rather, a robust supranational policy has had to be enacted to ensure the security of the Mediterranean coast; one in which member states provide an equitable share of the funding to border states. After the Lampedusa disaster the EU announced the establishment of new tools under the Asylum and Migration Fund (AMF) to more adequately support Mediterranean states affected by illegal immigration. In response to the call of the Italian and Greek interior ministers for more European aid, the European Commission provided both countries with huge amount of money to help improving reception conditions and the process of settling refugees. Improving assistance to illegal migrants who pass the gate of the EU maritime borders is undoubtedly needed. That being said however, one must keep in mind that part of this financial aid is used to send many of these immigrants back to their native countries. The EU Commission also injected extra funds into FRONTEX, the European border agency, in order to improve security along the maritime corridor off the African coast.

However, the question remains whether these improvements will actively discourage future illegal movement, meaning fewer tragedies such as Lampedusa. The answer is no! For these immigrants it is still less dangerous to try to survive this "journey" than to stay in their home countries. But, it is only the beginning of their long, exhausting and uncertain journey. What those vulnerable people go through after their arrival on the European soil, illustrates why the European Union is often called "Fortress Europe". Seeking asylum remains a painful process here, legal economic migration often impossible.

The plan was that a common European policy on asylum and immigration would reduce these tragedies at sea. By opening more legal immigration channels, the EU could discourage people from embarking on dangerous illegal immigration routes. It is unrealistic to imagine member states rescinding their national control over immigration, but by recognizing the shortfalls of its impervious migration policies and forging a more harmonized immigration policy, the EU might take a step towards a durable solution to this recurrent problem. Another such way to ease the process would be to ensure a fair distribution of refugees within the EU. Currently, asylum seekers can only send their application to obtain refugee status to one European member state. This officially bars them from being relocated elsewhere in Europe, as the asylum process still remains a national responsibility. A common EU asylum policy would remove some of the pressure on EU border-states (Girard 2014).

The rise of asylum seekers continues to generate disagreement among EU members as the Continental bloc struggles to come up with a comprehensive solution to the problem. Some countries, including Germany and France, announced that they would accept a larger number of asylum seekers, while also pushing the rest of the European Union to accept mandatory refugee quotas. However, other member states believe these measures will lead to heavier migrant flows and put additional pressure on the bloc's external borders, causing entry point countries such as Greece and Hungary to become overwhelmed by the number of migrants seeking to apply for asylum in Europe.

In August and September 2015, following the dispersion of harrowing images of human suffering coupled with increasing public pressure, some previously resistant European leaders began to warm up to the idea of allowing more African and Middle Eastern migrants into their countries. Many Europeans have been caring for the refugees, acknowledging the probable economic burdens but letting compassion subsume them. Others in Europe, though, hesitate out of fear that migrants will take jobs, threaten social cohesion, and raise welfare spending.

An influx of migrants might indeed have negative effects on native workers' wages (that's why some nations are banning the migrants from working), but sometimes, the effects of a migration can have a positive effect on native workers' wages. The effects of a mass migration on the labour market differ from case to case. Economists generally agree immigration is mostly good for a nation. They even have a term for it: "Immigration surplus" refers to the positive effect immigration has by creating new demand for goods and services, which encourages employers to hire more people. And if migrants replace incumbent workers, even though wages are lowered, goods and services are produced more cheaply. The winners are broadly distributed and the primary losers are incumbent workers, whose wages fall until the resulting economic growth boosts their wages in the long run.

Most of all what this demonstrates is how racial divides can exacerbate the strife that comes along with an influx of new workers - a lesson that should be concerning as we consider the situation today. Citizens, unions, and leaders will have to take a position on desperate migrants based on their own convictions and economic interests. Many Syrian refugees are skilled and young - just the thing, perhaps, for Germany's aging and shrinking labour force. The country figures that in four or five years, those economic benefits may outweigh the $11 billion per year it costs to take migrants in. This, of course, ignores the role of humanitarianism in the equation (Ghilarducci 2015).

But, unfortunately, Europe is primed for some ugly competition between native workers and new arrivals, as prejudice, austerity, and labour insecurity - three features of many European economies today - are sure to make any migrant crisis worse. By September 2015 more than 430,000 migrants crossed the Mediterranean to enter Europe - more than twice the number who had done so in 2014. Given their countries of origin (the largest proportions from Syria, Eritrea and Afghanistan), most are likely to have a credible claim for refugee status, and few are likely to be going home anytime soon. Many are here to stay.

Some view this as a humanitarian crisis and others see it as a challenge and a threat. On the other hand, economists tend to see a large influx of refugees not as an obligation or a threat, but as an opportunity. In particular, Europe faces a major demographic challenge: our population is aging, and, in many countries, shrinking. The European Union's total fertility rate is not much over 1.5 children per woman. Indeed, if it weren't for migration, the EU's working age population would already be shrinking. During the last years, deaths exceeds births in Greece and Italy (where the vast majority of the migrants arrived) and in Germany (where the largest number end up). Germany's economy is creating jobs faster than the natives can fill them. Surely the answer is obvious - Europe should not only accept refugees, but welcome the consequential increase in the labour force. In this case, the crisis represents "an opportunity for Europeans to jump start the continent's economy" (Piketty 2015).

It is undoubtedly true that the economic case for immigration is strong. In the UK, the period of high immigration that began in 1997 and intensified in 2004 with the extension of free movement rights to the new member states of Central and Eastern Europe, is generally recognized as having a positive economic impact. It has resulted in a substantial increase in overall employment and hence GDP without any significant negative impacts on the employment prospects of the native-born. And while the resulting growth in population has certainly increased pressure on public services, this is more than compensated by increased tax revenues. Nor has the changing population necessarily had a negative impact on social outcomes. For example, while there is much debate about the recent extraordinary improvement in the performance in London's schools - perhaps unparalleled in the developed world - it is generally accepted that the children of recent immigrants have at least something to do with it.

Moreover, beyond demographics, immigration could also improve Europe's economic performance over the medium-to-long-term in a number of ways. Immigrants bring different skills and aptitudes and can transmit those to nonimmigrant colleagues (and vice versa). They can increase competition in particular labour markets, increasing the incentive for natives to acquire certain skills. Indeed, evidence from Denmark suggests a refugee influx in the late 1980s had just this impact. And workplace diversity can boost productivity, as a number of US and UK studies have shown.

But a note of caution is in order here. The operative word in all of this is "could." While many refugees are well educated or highly skilled, not all are; and, more pertinently, unlike most "economic" high-skilled migrants, they are not coming here because of job or career opportunities. There is nothing automatic about their success, either in the labour market or in society as a whole.

Recent OECD (2015) research makes this point. Some European economies and societies are far more successful than others in integrating immigrants into their labour markets. While in the UK, immigrants are only marginally more likely to be unemployed than natives, in Spain, Greece, Belgium and Sweden there is a gap of 10 percentage points or more. Similar divergences appear on other indicators: for example, France, Germany and Finland all have worrying gaps between the educational performance of children of natives and the children of immigrants. The reasons for these divergences are complex and varied, ranging from the cultural and religious backgrounds of immigrants, to racial and religious discrimination and exclusion, to the different labour market institutions of different European countries. But if we want to realize the very large potential gains from this new wave of immigration, policy must not just be about where to put the new arrivals and how to deal with their resettlement in the short term, but how to ensure that they integrate successfully, both economically and socially. And this will not be painless or cost-free, either for them or for the host countries, and it will take years or decades, not weeks or months.

3EUROPEAN UNION'S HANDLING OF IMMIGRATION

Religious persecution, war and poverty have been driving hundreds of thousands of refugees to Europe, especially to Germany. Germany's authorities expected up to 800.000 asylum seekers in 2015, an estimate that may be too high but would represent about 1% of Germany's population. Immigrants other than asylum seekers would increase that number to far more than 1 million (they were 1.1 million asylum seekers in Germany in 2015). How quickly these immigrants are integrated (or not) will be decisive for Germany's economy and Europe's monetary union.

Immigrants are significantly younger than the domestic population. Given Germany's and few other EU countries' major demographic challenges, this is welcome news. As the German political leaders pointed out in 2015, the immediate costs of handling refugees and immigrants were manageable. Longterm benefits to public finance and the sustainability of pensions can be substantial. Research has documented that foreigners currently living in Germany pay more to the state than they receive in social benefits. But the longterm benefits depend on whether and how immigrants are integrated into the German labour market.

Many immigrants bring specific skills and the ability and willingness to work. German industry has discovered this opportunity and has called for legal changes to facilitate the integration of qualified workers in the German labour market. Industry groups are calling for immigrants to be granted the right to apply for apprenticeship positions in Germany, in order to adapt and upgrade their skills. In the last few years, the integration of migrants in the German labour market has been made easier, but significant obstacles remain, and Germany still has a reputation of being restrictive on immigration.

Opening the German labour market quickly and comprehensively to migrants should provide a boost to the German economy. The substantial increase in the labour supply should contribute to increased German output. More workers would mean more investments, increasing growth further. Immigrants also need housing, benefiting the construction sector. The additional investments in the economy and immigrants' lower saving rates would boost German demand. The demand boost should also benefit Germany's neighbours and could help bring down Germany's current account surplus. In fact, countries with high immigration rates often run current account deficits, such as Spain in the 2000s and the United States. The effect is unlikely to be as big in Germany, but additional workers will need capital and housing.

Some fear that immigrants will dampen wage growth, and make it harder for the Euro zone countries to regain much needed competitiveness relative to Germany. However, the empirical evidence on wage effects is inconclusive. Relatively lowskilled immigrants could even contribute to higher wages for skilled German workers. Qualified workers, such as nurses from Syria and Iraq, may however compete with German workers and potential immigrants from other euro area countries.

More immigrants entering Germany from outside the EU could make it more difficult for migrants from other Euro zone countries to find a job there. From 2009 to 2014, more than half a million immigrants arrived in Germany from Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and Central European countries. These numbers are small given the huge unemployment rates especially in Southern Europe. There is thus not enough migration within the euro area to make the currency union adapt to the shocks and reduce unemployment rates sufficiently. Immigration from outside Europe won't help bring down unemployment in Southern Europe - but it could at least contribute to adjustment in Germany, making job creation in Southern Europe easier.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has a historic chance to turn the refugee crisis into an opportunity for immigrants, for Germany and for Europe. Integrating large numbers of migrants is a huge challenge to society and to social cohesion. However if successful, it could boost Germany's economy and contribute to rebalancing the monetary union. Immigration could turn around Germany's main weakness - its precarious demographic situation - and help pay the pensions of tomorrow. Opening German borders to immigrants will change the economic and political balance in Europe for decades (Wolff 2015).

This is exactly what Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to do, when she invited the refugees to Germany and unintentionally made a refugee/migrant crisis in Europe more complicated. At first, the German refugees welcome policy "Flüchtlinge Willkommenskultur" was welcome by the German and most of Western European citizens, but later it brought lots of troubles for the countries and the German Chancellor as well. After several attacks, sexual harassments and problems caused by refugees and asylum seekers, more and more Germans have demonstrated their dissatisfaction and disappointment with the policy of German government. Even, lots of governmental and regional politicians within the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) pronounced their disagreement with the direction of Germany's handling of immigration. Despite of this fact, there are still lots of German and EU politicians who support Chancellor Merkel's resolution to solve the immigration crisis in Europe.

During his participation in a mini-summit of European leaders (informal meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi) in Hannover in April 2016, the then US President, Barack Obama, appreciated the Germans' courageous attitude to refugee crisis and that Chancellor Merkel showed a real moral and political leadership. Barack Obama announced that Germany and few other countries should not have carried the burden of crisis alone and also added that the recent agreement between the European Union and Turkey on migration was a step forward to a fairer division of responsibility. Thanks to Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany's engagement rate on the international political scene has been increased and the country plays more important role nowadays than before.

The European Union's aim is to promote democracy, unity, integration and cooperation between its members. However, in the last years it is not only dealing with economic crises in many countries, but also with a humanitarian one, due to the exponential number of migrants who run away from war or poverty situations.

When referring to the humanitarian crises the EU had to go through (and still has to) it is about the refugee migration coming mainly from Syria. Since 2011, the civil war in Syria killed more than 470,000 people, mostly civilians. Millions of people were displaced, and nearly five million Syrians fled, creating the biggest refugee crisis since the World War II. When the European Union leaders accorded in assembly to establish quotas to distribute the refugees that had arrived in Europe, many responses were manifested in respect. "On the one hand, some Central and Eastern countries rejected the proposal, putting in evidence the philosophy of agreement and cooperation of the EU claiming the quotas were not fair. Dissatisfaction was also felt in Western Europe too with the United Kingdom's shock Brexit vote from the EU and Austria's near election of a far rightwing leader attributed in part to the convulsions that the migrant crisis stirred. On the other hand, several countries promised they were going to accept a certain number of refugees and turned out taking even less than half of what they promised. In this note it is going to be exposed the issue that occurred and the current situation, due to what happened threatened many aspects that revive tensions in the European Union nowadays" (López-Dóriga 2018, 1).

The greatest burden of receiving Syria's refugees fell on Syria's neighbours: Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. In 2015 the number of refugees raised up and their destination changed to Europe. The refugee camps in the neighbour countries were full, the conditions were not good at all and the conflict was not coming to an end as the refugees expected. Therefore, refugees decided to emigrate to countries such as Germany, Austria or Norway looking for a better life. It was not until refugees appeared in the streets of Europe that European leaders realized that they could no longer ignore the problem. Furthermore, flows of migrants and asylum seekers were used by terrorist organizations such as ISIS to infiltrate terrorists to European countries. Facing this humanitarian crisis, European Union ministers approved a plan on September 2015 to share the burden of relocating up to 120,000 people from the so called "Frontline States" of Greece, Italy and Hungary to elsewhere within the EU. The plan assigned each member state quotas: a number of people to receive based on its economic strength, population and unemployment. Nevertheless, the quotas were rejected by a group of Central European countries, also known as the Visegrad Group, that share many interests and try to reach common agreements.

4REBELLION OF VISEGRAD GROUP COUNTRIES

In a fact, the handling of refugee or migration crisis in Europe is a long-term process. Also the perception of migrants vary country by country. When the high number of refugees started to flow from the Middle East and Africa to Europe in 2015, the most of the Europeans sympathized with them and tried to help them. Nevertheless, there were some Central and Eastern European countries, such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland (known as Visegrad Group, Visegrad Four or V4), which were worried and warned the EU leader countries that the open borders for all refugees could be counter-productive. The leaders of these countries have been confident that none of the Muslim refugees can be integrated practically (different culture, religion and traditions). The antirefugee atmosphere united the countries of Visegrad Group, what was a surprise to some, because this group usually has a problem to agree on the common steps regarding some issues, such as the European climate policy or economic sanctions against Russia, etc. The most active anti-refugee campaign supporter is the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán. He already spoke out strongly against the refugees in the beginning of 2015, after the terrorist attack of Charlie Hebdo, when the number of refugees coming to Europe was relatively low. However, the government of Viktor Orbán wanted to enact anti-terrorist laws as soon as possible, which alarmed the representatives of civil law. The parliamentary elections in Poland in November 2015 meant a significant change for Visegrad Group, too. The victory of nationalist-conservative party, Law and Justice, led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, brought few changes to the Polish political scene. The new government is absolutely against any of European agreements or reform plans for refugee redistribution. "Hungary and Poland have equally refused to abide the EU rules and values, and in their conflicts with the Commission they have not been ready either to any kind of meaningful compromise or real dialogue. Instead, they have talked about political accusations and have referred to their national sovereignty" (Ágh 2018, 42). "Because of the arrogance of the West, as well as because of the political "dictate" of receiving immigrants, Eastern Europe does not expect anything good from Brussels, and rather tends to nationalist parties and movements. The most responsible politicians of this revival of nationalism, which weaken the integrity of the EU are Viktor Orbán and Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Their nationalist agenda is not understood as populism, but as relevant reaction to unfulfilled promises of the West" (Ižák 2019, 65).

The politicians in the Czech Republic and Slovakia are different, not as "loud" as their Hungarian and Polish colleagues, but they also took an opportunity to use the refugee problem for their benefits. The former Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico, described the new migration policy of the European Union as a "ritual suicide". His then Prime Minister colleague from the Czech Republic, Bohuslav Sobotka, was not as pejorative, but still his government refused the EU's "refugee quotas" - one of the most controversial initiatives has been a provisional EU relocation system, aimed at the distribution of 120,000 asylum-seekers from Greece and Italy. This 'refugee quota plan' has been strongly criticized by several EU member states, in particular by Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, ever since the Juncker Commission first proposed it. Still, the EU member states' Ministries of Justice and Home Affairs found the necessary majority to give the initiative the green light on September 22, 2015 (Carrera 2015).

Although, the Visegrad Group countries were criticized by the most of EU member states (especially by Germany, Austria, France and Benelux countries), the terror attacks in Europe have changed the public opinion in these countries as well. It is perceptible in the entire European continent. Many European countries are witnessing electoral gains for far-right and nationalist parties, though they span a wide political spectrum. The migrant crisis has fuelled a backlash against the political establishment, but the wave of discontent also taps into long-standing fears about globalization and a dilution of national identity. This new anti-refugee atmosphere is proven by the fact that many of xenophobic, far-right wing and nationalistic political parties have been on the increase in Sweden (Sweden Democrats - SD), the Netherlands (Party of Freedom - PVV), Spain (Podemos a Ciudadanos), France (National Front - FN) as well as in Germany (Alternative for Germany - AfD), Austria (Austrian Freedom Party - FPÖ) and other EU member states.

4.1Czech Republic

The Czech Republic, like few more other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, focuses on economic migrants rather than refugees. The Czech Republic is one of the countries with the lowest unemployment rates in Europe; in fact, the need for foreign workers is essential for its economy. Meanwhile it never expected to receive asylum seekers at all. In 2015, only 3,644 people in the country were refugees, and in 2017, it was 3,580, according to the World Bank Database.

During the humanitarian crisis of 2015, the country's position in the quota debate was slightly different from the other V4 members, such as Hungary and Poland, which refused the Commission proposal of voluntary quotas straight away. The main complaint made by the Czech authorities was related to the procedure of voting at the June EU Council meeting. The decision on voluntary or compulsory quotas was not made by consensus, but by a qualified majority, and the result was perceived by the Czech authorities as mandatory and was read as an attack on the Czech Republic's sovereignty. Since then, not many differences can be seen between the Czech position and those of the other Visegrad Group countries. They all defended a position in which the numbers of accepted refugees depend only on the will of each individual state, and argued that the EU cannot make them accept any quota in a clear denunciation of the legality of the decision taking in the EU Council. Under the EU relocation quotas, the Czech Republic had to take in 4,300 people, around 410 refugees per one million people in the country. The Czech authorities have accepted only 12 refugees so far. The former Czech Prime Minister, Bohuslav Sobotka, showed then that the political line of the Czech Government would be a security-based one. This narrative was followed and reinforced by the subsequent Andrej Babis government.

There can be two main types of explanations of the Czech position on the EU level. The first one, which is more organic and essentialist, appeals to the security narrative based on stereotypes and prejudices that equates Muslims with terrorists, and sees them as a threat to the national identity. This position is explained by the political actors through the concept of "non-integrable communities" developed by Giovanni Sartori (2010). Nevertheless, this explanation was not empirically based since the Czech Republic does not have a large Muslim community. Despite that, the main reason for developing this kind of explanation is linked to "what happened in Germany or other countries with big Muslim communities". From their point of view, most of the problems happening in those countries are a direct consequence of the Muslim presence there. All the major Czech political parties have adopted this narrative of migration as a security threat and as linked to crime. Migration as a security issue is outside of the political debate. The discussion is only about through which tools and policies it should be managed. The way in which the Czech political class is dealing with this issue makes people perceive migration as a threat to their security and to a national identity that should be preserved.

The second explanation, which is more pragmatic and legalistic, justifies the Czech position with five main arguments. The first one is "refugees cannot be treated as a flock; they need to be asked where they want to go". This statement is reinforced by arguing that the EU relocation violates the Geneva Convention "because the right to asylum is purely individual". The second argument is that refugees do not want to go to the Czech Republic because they do not have social networks in the country, so "they do not want to stay here" but arrive in Germany instead. The third is that "the Czech Republic has its own migration pressure coming from the East, but countries in Western Europe do not know it", and thus foreign workers coming from the East "are our migrants". The fourth is that "the Czech Republic is helping in the border control operations, especially in the Balkans, so it is further implicated in the EU migration policy". In addition, the fifth argument is that "our complementary plan to solve the migration problem is to work in reception countries such as Jordan, Lebanon or Turkey" (Turrión Ferrero 2018, 9-10). The Czech position is based on there being no need to develop policies towards the arrivals of refugees because its efforts are focused on the refugees' countries of origin.

Czech society was caught unprepared when thousands of people arrived in Greece, and subsequently the Balkans, during the summer of 2015. Being fairly closed-off for most of the 20th century, Czechs tend to see the Czech Republic as a migrant-sending or transit country rather than an immigrant-receiving country. There is only a very small Muslim community in the Czech Republic, including a small group of Czech Muslims. Yet, islamophobia seems to be one of the main drivers of the anti-immigration politics held by the government and supported, arguably, by most citizens (Heřmanová and Basch 2017).

The public response to the migration crisis was mixed and divisive, whilst the majority of Czech citizens approve the 'politics of discouragement' practiced by the government, there was also an unusually strong civic movement of volunteers who participated in the distribution of humanitarian aid on the Balkan route. Whilst official policy is increasingly isolationist and protectionist, the public remains divided, and with hate-speech and populism on the rise, it is more and more difficult to publicly discuss issues such as migration. Despite this, the Czech Republic remains a relatively liberal, open country with functioning democratic processes. However, the issues outlined in this post must be taken seriously as a stark warning regarding the direction in which the country is heading.

When looking at Czech politics in relation to the refugee crisis both the role of political parties and of the president should be discussed. Each of them play an important role in shaping the debate about refugees since, given the presence of the mentioned 12 refugees in the country, there is very little interpersonal contact between Czech citizens and refugees, possibly one of the most important ways to increase intercultural understanding (Dražanová 2018). Because these interpersonal contacts do not exist in the Czech Republic citizens are dependent on the political debate and the media to form their opinion.

Political parties in the Czech Republic were and still are united in their refusal of refugees and immigration. Of the top six parties recently elected in the national parliament only one, the Czech Pirate Party, officially declared a pro migrant position (Hinshaw and Heijmans 2017). The other five parties range from utterly against any form of migration, the position of the Freedom and Direct Democracy Party, to against the forced refugee relocation scheme as in the case of the Czech Social Democratic Party. Since almost every major party in the Czech Republic is opposed to refugees it should not come as a surprise that the cues taken from the political debate depict the refugee crisis in a genuine negative way.

Although the president has only a ceremonial role, the office traditionally has a strong role in influencing the public debate. The incumbent president, Miloš Zeman, is obviously against refugees and his actions are contributing to "an increasingly xenophobic public discourse" in the Czech Republic (Nielsen 2015).

As elsewhere in Europe, where anti-immigration movements have gained a new toehold, the Czech Republic in recent years has witnessed rising polarization of politics and society around migration issues. In the face of the prevailing public ambivalence, politicians who support more open migration policies have been reluctant to advance their views and less numerous than the opposing side. As a result, recently proposed and adopted policies are based on a security paradigm that is focused on migration control and greater selectivity of immigrants. With Czech Republic there are just four more countries, which voted against the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration in December 2018 (Drbohlav and Janurová 2019). Once again, the Czech Republic is aligned with Hungary, Poland and Slovakia in an anti-migration crusade, thus feeding populist and xenophobic discourses around Europe.

4.2Slovakia

Like its Visegrad Group counterparts, Slovakia has pursued extremely restrictive immigration policies and employed anti-migrant rhetoric since the onset of the "refugee crisis" in 2015. Despite the fact that Muslims make up only 0.1 percent of the population, Slovakia has witnessed a surge in Islamophobic discourse and hate crimes.

Slovakia's experience with integration of migrants is not so long, but since there is a significant number of Roma and Hungarians in the country, integration as a concept has been an issue in Slovakia for decades (Lajčáková 2007). Slovakia has surely been one of the EU states that has been most critical to the idea of refugee settlement in Europe. Slovakia has from the very beginning rejected the EU policy of migrant relocation. What's more, Slovak government took the EU to court to fight a mandatory mechanism for relocating asylum-seekers. That is, in December 2015 Slovakia filed a lawsuit at the European Court of Justice against the European Union's plan to redistribute 120,000 refugees across all 28 EU Member States (the EU's mandatory relocation scheme under which Slovakia was expected to accept 802 asylum seekers) (von der Burchard and Barigazzi 2015). Thus, it can be said that Slovakia openly has rejected the EU human call for more solidarity with migrants.

The country's hostile attitude towards refugees is belied by the fact that Slovakia has been largely shielded from migration pressures because it is not located on the main migration routes into western Europe, especially after Hungary sealed its border with Serbia and the March 2016 EU-Turkey deal came into effect. In 2017 Slovakia registered just 160 asylum applications, the lowest number in the EU that year. In 2017, 2,590 undocumented migrants were apprehended (a similar figure to that in Bulgaria), and in 2016, 2,035 were apprehended. In 2017, 1,740 non-citizens were expelled from the country, of whom 80 percent left "voluntarily" (Eurostat 2017).

Economic motives have spurred Slovakia to adopt a more Euro-friendly posture as the refugee "crisis" has subsided, distancing itself from its closest neighbours. In 2018, Slovakia opted not to vote on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration while the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary voted against it (Gotev 2018).

We can say that the socio-political factors are the most important factors influencing the current situation concerning attitudes towards immigrants in Slovakia. Before the outbreak of the current migration and refugee crisis, it was only a marginal topic for Slovak politicians and public, but with the crisis the situation has changed significantly, especially due to the fact that the migration policy became a part of electoral programs of the main Slovak political parties before the parliamentary elections in 2016. With a few exceptions, the most of the political party leaders used the migration actively (and negatively) in the campaign, including the former Prime Minister and leader of Smer-SD, Robert Fico, the leader of opposition liberal party SaS, Richard Sulík, the leader of the nationalist party SNS, Andrej Danko or the extremist LSNS leader, Marian Kotleba.

What's more, the predominantly Christian country of Slovakia passed a law in November 2016 that effectively bans Islam as an officially recognized religion, which also blocks Islam from receiving any state subsidies for its schools (CNS News 2016). According to the new law, a religion must have at least 50,000 members to qualify for state recognition; the previous threshold was 20,000 members. According to Slovakia's latest census, there are 2,000 Muslims and there and "no recognized mosques". The former Prime Minister, Robert Fico, led the campaign for the 2016 March election under the slogan "We protect Slovakia", calling migrants "a danger". However, an unintended result of Fico's harsh and undemocratic rhetoric towards the migrants was that the far-right People's Party-Our Slovakia has entered parliament with over 8 % of the vote. Surprisingly, also many young people in Slovakia have been against the idea of accepting the migrants to Slovak society (Galanova 2016). The protests come as a surprise since the country has accepted only a few of the migrants currently fleeing to European continent. During the 26 years since its independence, only about 60,000 people have sought asylum in Slovakia and a little over 800 have been successful. Less than 700 others have received subsidiary protection which means a status for people who do not qualify as refugees. "Still, many Slovaks argue that refugees and migrants are one of the most serious challenges for this Central European country. For many Slovaks the refugees are considered to be one the biggest problem facing the country. They have been worried about migration while most think refugees and migrants would increase crime and the risk of terrorist attacks. It is obvious that most of Slovaks who oppose settlement of migrants in their country have such a stance due to security and economic concerns. However, their fears due to cultural and ideological concerns should not be neglected as well" (Brljavac 2017, 99-100).

4.3Poland

The Polish response to the crisis that escalated across Europe in 2015, banning refugees from crossing its borders, has been one of the least welcoming in Europe. Poland has been reprimanded by the EU for its lack of solidarity with other countries that accepted refugees. The government's response was that it does indeed welcome refugees as long as they are not Muslims, since letting Muslim refugees in would be a security risk. "The figure of the Muslim terrorist posing as a refugee has become a key trope through which xenophobic nationalist politics have been employed. In this sense, Poland can be seen to be drawing particular inspiration from the Eurosceptic politics of Viktor Orbán's Hungary while also reflecting a broader European trend towards Islamophobia in countries such as France, Germany, Sweden or the UK" (Narkowicz 2018, 357).

The migration crisis rumbled on for the last few years since it had developed as a major issue in Polish politics dividing the main parties in the run up to October 2015 parliamentary election. Along with the three other 'Visegrad Group countries, the previous government, led by the centrist Civic Platform (PO) grouping, initially opposed the European Commission's proposal for mandatory re-distribution quotas for Middle Eastern and North African migrants located in Greece and Italy.

However, concerned that the country was coming across as one of the least sympathetic to the migrants' plight, the Polish government changed its approach following the summer 2015 migration wave. Civic Platform's EU strategy was based on trying to locate Poland within the so-called 'European mainstream' by presenting itself as a reliable and stable member state adopting a positive and constructive approach towards the main EU powers, so it was anxious to appear to be playing a positive role in helping alleviate the crisis. In the event, at the September 2015 EU summit Poland broke with its Central European allies and signed up to a burden-sharing plan which involved the country admitting 6,200 migrants as part of an EU-wide scheme to relocate 160,000 people in total by September 2017.

On the other hand, the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, at the time the main opposition grouping, bitterly opposed the EU plan arguing that Poland should resist pressure to take in migrants. The party warned that there was a serious danger of making the same mistakes as many Western European states with large Muslim communities, which could lead to admitting migrants who did not respect Polish laws and customs and tried to impose their way of life on the country. While it always supported Polish EU membership in principle, Law and Justice was a broadly anti-federalist (verging on Eurosceptic) party committed to defending Polish sovereignty, especially in the moral-cultural sphere where it rejected what it saw as a hegemonic EU liberal-left consensus that undermined Poland's traditional values and national identity. It viewed the migrant relocation scheme as part of this wider clash of cultures which also threatened the country's national security. Not surprisingly, therefore, Law and Justice accused the outgoing Civic Platform government of betraying its Central European allies by taking decisions under EU pressure that undermined Polish culture and security. It argued that the figure of a few thousand migrants was unrealistic because family members would be able to join initial arrivals and that the quota would be used as a precedent to force Poland to take in additional migrants in the future. The 2015 elections empowered the extreme fringe groups on the right. This was seen through the several anti-refugee and anti-Muslim demonstrations held across Poland, attracting large crowds of Poles whose attitudes have grown increasingly hostile to refugees in general and Muslims in particular. As the government and the Church have facilitated spaces for the strengthening and legitimization of the far-right movement, this has provoked a strong response from other elements within civil society to resist this shift resulting in increased levels of solidarity politics across difference. The more the Polish borders shrank to ensure no "Others" slip through, the more civil society activism mushroomed across Poland unveiling divisions within and between key public institutions that ran deeper than disagreement over whether to welcome refugees.

Following its October 2015 election victory, the new Law and Justice Government agreed initially to implement the scheme approved by its predecessor and, as a start, accept 100 migrants. However, in April 2016 it suspended the process arguing that the verification procedures for the vetting of migrants were insufficient to guarantee Polish national security. Since then Poland (along with Hungary) has not accepted any migrants under the EU scheme (Szczerbiak 2017).

The Law and Justice Government's opposition to the relocation of Syrians to Poland has harmed the country. It has been criticized many times by EU countries and institutions, including the European Parliament. Poland has lost the reputation of a country that can take responsibility for the community and solve European problems. By refusing to show solidarity with the migration crisis, the country has lost the right to demand solidarity from others (Wieliński and Wyborcza 2018). The rich EU countries showed solidarity with Poland by paying into the EU cohesion fund, which financed investments that help poorer countries to catch up. So far, Poland has been its largest beneficiary.

Public opinion shows that Poles have very limited knowledge of immigration and are very sceptic regarding its possible benefits. This is directly linked to, among other things, a lack of direct experience and contact with foreigners as well as the relatively short history of Poland as a destination country. A surprising fact is that between 2015 and 2017, Poles changed from being cautious supporters to decisive opponents of admitting refugees into the country. In the early stages of the refugee crisis, Poles were less sceptical than citizens of other countries in the region. "The reasons for this shift in opinion are linked to, among others, the public debate and the rhetoric of political elites who have been using fear of immigration for their own political purposes" (Laciak and Frelak 2018, 10). Furthermore, it has proved to be a very facile political tactic, with the majority of society being unable to ascertain the veracity of the often-xenophobic message. The general trend has also been to focus on the security issues connected with migration, which has resulted in the perception of refugees as a challenge to the state's internal security.

The refugee crisis and the domestic escalation of racist attitudes in its response have played into the current nationalist political climate of Poland, one that is hostile to any imposition from abroad. In this wider context, civil society became increasingly divided between those who felt empowered by the conservative Catholic agenda and those who felt that the government undermined the country's democratic values. Within this, the figure of the refugee became a symbol of the wider conflict in which the refugee crisis functioned as subtext. As the anti-refugee discourses has revealed, it is not only Muslims, but also Jews, that are targeted in what seems to be a revival of anti-Semitism (Santora 2019). An understanding of the recent escalation in anti-refugee attitudes in the country needs to be analysed as a continuation, rather than an entirely new phenomenon, one that is being furthered as part of a nationalist project.

4.4Hungary

In Hungary in 2014 there were more than 40,000 first-time asylum applicants coming from outside the EU. This numbers were on the rise and in the first half of 2015 Hungary received the second highest (after Germany) number of asylum applications in Europe. In 2015 the number of irregular entries increased with refugees coming via the Balkan route from Serbia towards Hungary. However, for many of them Hungary was not the final destination, and many continued the journey towards Germany or other European destinations.

The government, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, responded to refugee inflows with a wire fence constructed along the 175-kilometer border with Serbia in order to deter new entries and also announced fence-building on sections of the border with Croatia and considered fence construction on the border with Romania. In an incident after closing the border with Serbia, Hungarian police used tear gas against immigrants on the Serbian side of the border.

The government's attitude towards the migration crisis was obvious. At the beginning of 2015, the Fidesz - Hungarian Civic Alliance government ran an antiimmigrant campaign, a 'National Consultation on Immigration'. Later in July 2015, the Hungarian parliament passed amendments to the Asylum Act. The UNHCR raised concerns about the amendment, which might lead to denying assistance to asylum-seekers, their deportation and prolonged detention. The Hungarian government stood in opposition to the quota system voting against it along with other three Member States. While Fidesz ran an anti-immigrant campaign, many Hungarians protested against it and the governmental campaign was criticized by advocacy organizations and researchers.

The public's response was different from the government's expectations and anti-immigrant protests took place in the country as well as demonstrations against border fence raising. Civil society organizations and volunteers were active in supporting refugees arriving in the country. Hungarians collected food, medicines and clothes. At train stations and around towns food and other basic goods were distributed to refugees and medical care was provided. Hungarian intellectuals, artists and politicians signed solidarity appeal from Central Europe in response to the migrant crisis.

However, the inflammatory way that officials and the national media in Hungary have described the influx of refugees created confusion, hostility, and fear among the citizens. This discourse has only exacerbated the xenophobia deeply entrenched in a part of the Hungarian population, and made the efforts of ordinary citizens and organizations working with asylum seekers and migrants more difficult (Pardavi and Gyulai 2015). Due to the government's anti-migration campaign and 'zero refugee' strategy, the public opinion has changed a lot in Hungary.

Hungary was the second European Union country in 2015, behind Greece, to apprehend irregular migrants at its external borders. However, the construction of the fences at the two Southern borders with Serbia and Croatia put Hungary outside the Western Balkan migratory route. Prior to the completion of the fences and the start of the migration crisis in summer 2015, the average daily arrivals in Hungary was 274 people/day. The number increased to the average daily arrivals of more than 7,000 people, but, finally, in December 2017 to 10 persons/day (IOM 2018).

A series of amendments to asylum legislation caused many changes in the arrival procedures and overall treatment of asylum seekers and beneficiaries of international protection in Hungary. In August and September 2015, together with the completion of the fence, Hungary designated Serbia as a safe third country, allowed for expedited asylum determination, and limited procedural safeguards. Additionally, climbing through the border fence or damaging it became a criminal offence punishable with imprisonment.

In 2016, a new amendment to asylum law prescribed police to push migrants who had "illegally" entered the territory and were apprehended within 8 km from the border, back to the other side of the border fence. More amendments have been subsequently adopted to decrease or suppress the different support mechanisms to asylum seekers and beneficiaries of international protection. In March 2017, new revisions to asylum law were enacted that decreed all irregular migrants be pushed back to the Southern border. The above asylum policies have been highly criticized on the basis of international and EU law as many international actors have argued that effective access to protection and the principle of non-refoulment are not upheld. Due to reception conditions in Hungary, several EU member states have chosen to stop transfers to Hungary under the Dublin III mechanism (IOM 2018). The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the detention of migrants in transit zones qualified as a violation of the right to liberty, and challenged the legality of the detention centre's policies.

It is obvious that in Viktor Orbán's Hungary, refugees are unwelcome. Orbán won a third successive term in office last year, campaigning on a strong antiimmigrant platform. He refused to take part in the European Union's resettlement program for refugees in 2015. Later, Hungary approved a package of legislation called the "Stop Soros" law, which criminalized providing aid to undocumented immigrants and asylum-seekers. It declares that any group or individual helping undocumented immigrants claim asylum could be liable for a jail term. The move has unsettled NGOs and also made Hungarians nervous about volunteering to help (Barry 2019). In 2015 the European Commission initiated an infringement procedure against Hungary concerning its asylum legislation. After a number of steps taken by the Commission in January 2018 the European Court of Justice revealed that it will hear the case against Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland regarding the infringement procedure for their refusal to abide by the decision on EU refugee quotas.

5CONCLUSIONS

The different historical circumstances of European countries (like their colonial past) as well as their economic developments, and the demand for labour of their industries in the period after the World War II, led to different immigration intensities from different origin countries. As a result, different countries in Europe today are home to very dissimilar immigrant populations, in terms of origin, ethnicity, and education. Further, while some countries were home to large immigrant populations already in the 1960's, others experienced large immigration over the last two decades or only the recent years. Overall, however, large-scale immigration, and in particular immigration from remote parts of the world, is a far more recent phenomenon for any European country.

Immigration has impacted widely on European societies, and it will continue to do so. The non-indigenous populations with an immigration background in Europe have contributed to its economic transformation. Europe has diversified itself culturally. This has led to the development of new forms of dealing with discrimination, social exclusion, racism and xenophobia. Any specific conclusions that can be made must remain hypotheses. Large gaps in knowledge concerning these phenomena were identified in most of the European countries. Also, it is hard to distinguish between the influence of immigration in European societies and that of globalization. European societies have changed dramatically in the last decades and immigrants have obviously played a major role, especially in the transformation of European economies. European polities are also experiencing change due to immigration. The topics of immigration and cultural diversity are now being widely discussed in the public discourse. Institutional changes and development in the civil society are also fairly clear. Institutions and organizations are being transformed in this process. Academia, governmental bureaucracies, political parties and trade unions are all responding in different manners to the impact of immigration. Associations, civil society activities, NGOs, immigrant self-organizations and similar groups are all helping to change the political landscape in Europe. Finally, immigration has an impact on the development of new political ideas and confrontations.

The framing of migration in political discourse can be characterized in two ways: migration is seen and treated predominantly as a security problem, and the broader context of migration and its economic, social and political dimensions is being ignored through a focus on the 'refugee crisis' and the Middle East. Cultural incompatibility and problematic integration of Muslim refugees is one of the main arguments given for not accepting refugees.

In terms of actual relations, on the one hand critics of the Central European countries' stance over refugees claim that they are willing to accept the economic benefits of the EU, including access to the single market, but have shown a disregard for the humanitarian and political responsibilities. On the other hand, the Visegrad Group complains that Western European countries treat them like second-class members, meddling in domestic issues by Brussels and attempting to impose EU-wide solutions against their will, as typified by migrant quotas. The Visegrad Group countries are obviously against of this solution. The European Union's response is simple. It claimed that if no action was taken by them, the European Commission would not hesitate to make use of its powers under the treaties and to open infringement procedures. At this time, no official sanctions have been imposed to these countries yet. Despite of the threats from the EU for not taking them, the Visegrad Group countries claimed that accepting migrants would have certainly been worse for the country for security reasons than facing EU action.

To sum it up, facing this refugee crisis in the European Union made a huge disagreement between Western and Eastern members. Since the European Union has been expanding its boarders from west to east integrating new countries as member states, it should also take into account that this new member countries have had a different past (in the case of the Central European countries, they were under the iron curtain) and nowadays, despite of the wish to collaborate all together, the different ideologies and the different priorities of each country make it difficult when it comes to reach an agreement. Therefore, while old Europe expects new Europe to accept its responsibilities, along with the financial and security benefits of the EU, this is going to take time. As a matter of fact, it is understandable that the EU Commission wants to sanction the countries that rejected the quotas, but the majority of the countries that did accept to relocate the refugees in the end have not even accepted half of what they promised, and apparently they find themselves under no threats of sanction. In conclusion, the future of Europe and a solution to this problem is not known yet, but what is clear is that there is a breach between the Western and CentralEastern countries of the EU, so an efficient and fair solution which is implemented in common agreement will expect a long time to come yet.

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