European fears Arab world chaos may spark wave of immigrants

REVOLUTIONS hurtling through the Middle East have inspired millions of Europeans, who recall the awe they felt when communist regimes crumbled across the former Soviet bloc.

But along with the excitement come questions, fears and doubts — as the flames of revolt shoot up on the continent’s very doorstep.

Europe has long seen itself as a champion of democracy but many fear a flood of refugees hitting European shores, a concern made urgent by the crush of thousands of Tunisians who turned up in Italy after the North African country overthrew its autocrat, and signs that Libya — long a gateway of illegal emigration to Europe — is on the verge of implosion.

Questions are also emerging about whether the spirit of revolt might also take root among Europe-based Arabs, who often accuse their host countries of racism and blame the colonial past for many of their woes.

“All of these problems that led to revolutions in the Arab world are also daily life in France and are more and more unbearable,” wrote Yacine Djaziri, whose blog chronicles life in immigrant-heavy Paris suburbs that exploded in riots in 2005.

“How do we fix it? Do we need to set ourselves on fire? Be resigned? Get angry? Revolt?”

Balanced with fears are calls for hope and solidarity: some European officials proposed a Marshall Plan for the Middle East, drawing an explicit parallel to the continent’s US-funded reconstruction after World War II that testifies to the magnitude of the drama unfolding across the Mediterranean.

But Europeans ask: who’s going to pay when they’re engulfed in a debt crisis that threatens to darken the future of an entire generation? “Germany pumps enough money into foreign countries already,” said Marcel Mueller, 27.

Germans can well imagine the burden they might shoulder to help fund a Marshall Plan for the Arab world: 20 years after reunification, they are still charged an extra “solidarity tax” to subsidise reconstruction in the former communist east — estimated at €1.3 billion.

European Investment Bank president Philippe Maystadt estimates that to support a transition to democracy in Tunisia, Egypt and other countries in the region it would need to lend €6bn over the next three years.

Images of boatloads of migrants, mostly from Tunisia, washing up on the tiny Sicilian village of Lampedusa struck many as a harbinger of mass-scale flight to Europe. The explosion of revolt in Libya has compounded fears of a migration crisis.

“It’s a problem that worries us all, because the situation spurred many to arrive,” said Alberto Brizzi, a waiter at a Rome trattoria. “The people take off thinking that they’ll find something better than in their country. But that’s not so.”

As the Tunisians flooded Lampedusa, Italian interior minister Roberto Maroni, of the anti-immigrant Northern League, stoked fears that terrorists and al-Qaida supporters could have mingled among what he described as a “biblical exodus” of migrants.

German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle has urged leaders to recognise the “unique opportunity right now to promote democracy, human rights and civil liberties in our neighbourhood”.

But Europe has been struggling for years with its project to foster partnership with a neighbouring Muslim nation: EU membership negotiations with Turkey, widely viewed as a model of how Islam and democracy can flourish together, have all but fallen apart — largely due to hostility from Germany and France.

The promise of EU membership was a key factor in Turkey implementing the democratic, judicial and economic reforms that have transformed the nation into an emerging power. Now, with Europe an increasingly distant dream, it has been forging closer ties with Iran, Russia, and others often at odds with the West.

The call for an ambitious reconstruction programme, however, comes at a time when EU countries are already smarting from having to bail out both Greece and Ireland from the verge of bankruptcy.

Protracted wrangling over those rescues shows how difficult it will be to achieve any meaningful plan for the Middle East.