The mass attacks on women that took place in several cities in Germany on New Year's Eve provoked a rise of speeches on the theme of migration, the discrepancy of Islamic and European values and even the rapid demise of Europe.
The head of the International Committee of the State Duma, Alexey Pushkov, said that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) needs a new agenda. In particular, they need to pay attention to the attacks on the residents of Cologne by migrants.
Yesterday Austria temporarily suspended the Schengen Agreement and imposed total control over the border. Everyone who enters the country will be checked, and if the border authorities consider that a person has no right to receive asylum, or is suspicious, the individual will not be allowed to cross the border.
"It is necessary to show documents at the border. If the European Union fails to protect its external borders, the future of the Schengen Zone will be at risk," Chancellor Werner Faymann said in an interview with Oesterreich, stressing that the Schengen rules are cancelled temporarily.
However, this is not the first decision by the EU countries. At the beginning of the year, control of documents on its borders was introduced by Sweden. Eight Schengen countries introduced "temporary passport controls" in September 2015 on their borders. The president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker has repeatedly expressed concern about this situation. He made a statement on January 7th that European countries must do everything to "save Schengen."
Today's fall in commodity prices threatens to worsen the current serious economic conditions in developing countries and lead to a new wave of migrants to Europe, the president and founder of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab stated.
The events in Cologne provoked the rise of speeches on the theme of migration, the director of the Foundation for Research, Development and support of the Valdai international discussion club, editor-in-chief of the magazine Russia in Global Affairs Fyodor Lukyanov said.
"The migration crisis is the most deep, acute and serious crisis of European integration for many decades. It affects not only political and economic issues, but above all a topic related to relations between the two countries, their value aspect, which the European Union always puts forward as a very important basis for its existence, especially during the last 15-20 years," the expert said in an interview with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza.
"I think that the European Union will change significantly during the process of solving the problem of the crisis. This is not the only reason, as there are a lot of problems now, but the problem with refugees is to be the final hint to transform the EU and implement urgent reforms,'' the analyst believes.
"Another thing is that nobody can tell the composition and nature of these reforms. The refugee crisis is undermining the leadership of Germany, which seemed to take shape in the previous year and a half. It turns out that there is no leader again, and it is unclear how to carry out the transformation without a leader," Fyodor Lukyanov concluded.
