Geostrategic Media Political Commentary, Analysis, Security, Defense
REBECCA PERRING
THE European Union faces being destroyed under the growing threat of terrorism, which has sparked the influx of migrants into Europe, the European Parliament’s President has warned.
Martin Schulz, the German president of the European Parliament, fears the 28-member bloc will crumble under the to political unrest caused by the migrant crisis.
He said: “The worst nightmare for the European project is an outbreak of populism or political upheaval in Germany. Now it is looking like a real possibility.
“Nobody knows what we are facing this year. We are threatened as never before.”
This week’s deadly attacks in Istanbul have intensified the gravity of the growing problem.
Following the arrival of 1.1million migrants into Germany alone and in the wake of sickeningsex attacks in Cologne, member states are telling German Chancellor Angela Merkel ‘we told you so’.
An explosive political fallout is now feared.
A veteran EU diplomat warned: “Looking at Germany, especially after Cologne, there is the objective basis for political explosion if someone lights the fuse.”
The concerns were echoed by Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, who added: “The EU was tested to its limits [in 2015] and I cannot see anything to indicate this year will be any different.”
Europe has been the hotbed of terrorism since the Charlie Hebdo and Kosher supermarket attacks in Paris, killing 17 people.
Germany is straining in its attempts to solve the migrant crisis
But the year ended as it began, with terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 people. Just moments away from the centre of the EU, November’s Paris atrocities were planned by Islamic State killers in the centre of Molenbeek in Belgium.
Angela Merkel may decide to suspend the Schengen in a bid to stop the rise of nationalism in her country.
More than 40 politicians in Merkel’s Christian Democrat Party signed a petition to close its doors to refugees following the sex attacks in Cologne.
The chancellor has come under intense pressure to change her “open-door” policy after it was revealed asylum seekers were among suspects in the vicious New Year’s Eve attacks.
More than 650 women have now come forward to file criminal complaints over the attacks, around 45 per cent of them for sexual assault.
