Roger Köppel, the Swiss journalist and editor-in-chief of the weekly Die Weltwoche, could be added to a European Union sanctions list amid concerns that his reporting and commentary are sympathetic to Russian positions.
The possibility emerged at the start of this week, when the Swiss German-language newspaper Blick cited EU sources describing Köppel as a potential target.
Such a move would form part of a broader Brussels strategy aimed at countering narratives regarded as aligned with the Kremlin.
The concern follows the December 2025 blacklisting of Jacques Baud, a retired Swiss intelligence officer accused of spreading pro-Russian propaganda.
Legal analysts suggest the EU is becoming increasingly sensitive to influential media figures who may amplify alleged Kremlin viewpoints as journalism, signalling a shift towards tighter controls over information deemed strategically harmful.
According to sources cited by Blick, Köppel could be sanctioned within weeks, pending internal legal and political approvals.
Born in 1965, Köppel is a prominent figure in German-speaking media. He was editor-in-chief of the German daily Die Welt from 2004 to 2006 and is now editing and owner of Die Weltwoche.
Between 2015 and 2023, he served as a member of the Swiss National Council for the conservative Swiss People’s Party (SVP).
In recent years, Köppel has increasingly developed non-mainstream narratives for a traditional readership, frequently publishing alternative perspectives on geopolitics, migration, freedom of speech and the war in Ukraine.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he has travelled regularly to Moscow as an accredited journalist.
During these visits, he has conducted interviews, met Kremlin-affiliated figures such as television presenter Vladimir Solovyov, and posed a question to President Vladimir Putin at a press conference.
He has openly criticised Western sanctions and, at times, expressed admiration for aspects of Russian leadership.
His appearances on Russian-aligned platforms, including RT DE, have drawn scrutiny from EU officials.
If sanctioned, Köppel could face asset freezes and travel restrictions within the EU—measures previously applied to individuals accused of spreading disinformation.
Analysts note that sanctioning a high-profile journalist would represent a significant expansion of EU policy, extending punitive measures beyond state actors and oligarchs to include media figures and commentators.
Köppel has defended his work as journalism committed to a diversity of viewpoints, arguing that robust debate is essential to democracy. He rejects accusations that he is promoting propaganda.
The potential sanctions have triggered a broader debate over censorship and freedom of expression in Europe.
Critics argue that targeting commentators for offering alternative perspectives on Russia and the war in Ukraine risks suppressing dissenting voices and could set Europe on a path towards EU-driven censorship that is dangerous for democratic debate.
“I have had many fierce battles with Roger Köppel here on X and elsewhere over his Russia stance … but where on earth have we arrived if this is now seriously being discussed? We must tolerate different points of view, no matter how perverse we ourselves may find them,” wrote Paul Ronzheimer, chief reporter for the German Bild, on X.
European politicians have also weighed in. Fabio De Masi, a German politician and member of the left-wing BSW party, stressed the importance of safeguarding pluralism within the EU and warned against institutional pressure that could stifle dissenting perspectives.
However, some journalists have expressed support for possible sanctions. Jörg Lau, foreign correspondent for Die Zeit, commented on X in response to the case: “Good. Traitor.”
The case underscores the tension between efforts to counter misinformation and the need to preserve democratic freedoms. Critics warn that sanctioning commentators such as Köppel could establish a precedent for restricting independent journalism and narrowing the scope of public debate on controversial geopolitical issues.
Observers caution that while combating foreign influence is a legitimate objective, measures that suppress dissenting opinions risk undermining the fundamental freedoms of expression and information upon which European democracy rests.
Justice Secretary David Lammy and his Labour party are freeing dangerous felons by the thousands.
It turns out releasing dangerous criminals is turning out just as badly as we expected.
When failing Keir Starmer became British Prime Minister, he implemented a slew of suicidal policies that are not-so-slowly destroying the United Kingdom.
Out of all the bad ideas, the early release of dangerous convicts to deal with prison overcrowd may be the worst of them all.
🚨🇬🇧 LAMMY UNDER FIRE AS 90 VIOLENT CRIMINALS FREED BY “MISTAKE”
The accidental release of the Epping sex offender was just the beginning – over 90 violent offenders have now been confirmed as wrongly released from British prisons.
“Almost 900 serious crimes have been recorded in the past year as being committed by offenders under supervision of probation after being released from jail or while serving community sentences. It is the highest number since records began, and accounts for at least one murder and two rapes every week of the year. Offences also include attempted murder, manslaughter, sexual assaults, arson, kidnapping and causing death by driving or with a stolen vehicle.”
Remember when @UKLabour assured us all the prison early release scheme would not be problematic because only for minor crime and women would DEFINITELY be safe? (We never were). Freed prisoners are committing 2 rapes a week amidst a record number of further offences. pic.twitter.com/fM5Jtvnw9a
Chief inspector of probation, Martin Jones said public safety was being put at risk, and ordered a nationwide inspection of probation’s management of dangerous criminals.
Jones said he was ‘increasingly concerned that probation is falling short in its duty to protect the public’.
“He said the driving factors were acute shortages of front-line probation officers, with about 30 per cent fewer than required, and a breakdown in information-sharing between probation, police and social services.
‘These gaps mean that hard-pressed probation staff are sometimes lacking critical information on the dynamic risk people on probation may pose’, he told The Telegraph.”
Prisons are overflowing, they're letting dangerous bastards out at 40% of their sentence knowing they'll go on to do it again so they can cram more in. Foreign prisoners contribute more and more to this crisis, they're demonstrably more likely to commit crime, particularly sexual… pic.twitter.com/5J1GsZHmW6
A nurse has said she was “beaten nearly to death” by an Afghan man with a crowbar in a hospital waiting room, where six people were injured.
Meg Lynch, 28, said she is “so, so, so lucky I’m still alive” after being hit on the back of the head while standing at the vending machine waiting for a drink at Newton Community Hospital in Newton-Le-Willows, Merseyside.
Victim Meg Lynch shared photos on Facebook of her injuries after the terrifying ordeal | FACEBOOK
The district nurse posted photos on social media of her head that appeared to have been cut open, detailing how she suffered “a few blows to the head”.
“I ran, I hid and did what I could do to get a door between me and him,” she described of the terrifying ordeal.
Merseyside Police confirmed that a total of six people required treatment following an incident at the hospital, with injuries including head lacerations, injuries to their arms and hands, and bruising.
The force confirmed all are in a stable condition.
Police said a metal bar believed to have been used in the incident has been recovered for forensic examination, while witnesses are being spoken to and CCTV is being analysed.
A 20-year-old man, residing in Newton-le-Willows but originally from Afghanistan, was arrested on suspicion of six counts of Section 18 wounding, affray and criminal damage, it was confirmed.
He has been taken to a police station in Merseyside and detained under the Mental Health Act.
After being rushed off to a nearby Accident and Emergency room, having her “head sewn back together”, Ms Lynch said CT scans and X-rays had come back clear.
She said the attack occurred at 12:00 on Tuesday, December 30.
“I honestly don’t know why this man did this to me and other workers of the hospital,” she wrote.
“But I’m so so so lucky I’m still alive, and I’m so lucky I ran when I did, otherwise I wouldn’t be here right now.”
Ms Lynch added that she is “home and safe with my family taking care of me”, though in a “very sore and in a state of shock, but I’m okay”.
The police said a scene remains in place at the community hospital while enquiries into the incident continue.
A mobile police station is also on site, and the force encouraged those with any worries or concerns to speak with an officer.
There will also be high-visibility policing patrols in the local area, and officers will continue to engage with staff and patients at the hospital as well as people living and working locally.
St Helens Local Policing Superintendent Sarah Rotherham said: “We understand that this incident would have caused concern for the local community, and I hope the public feel reassured by the increased police presence.
“I would ask anyone with concerns to speak to one of our officers or contact their local police station.”
As Christians worldwide celebrate Christmas, millions are also suffering from severe pressures and persecution in majority-Muslim countries. This includes post-Soviet states, countries governed by Sharia law, and officially secular nations such as Turkey.
According to a 2024 Human Rights Violations Report authored by Turkey’s Association of Protestant Churches, Christians are subject to increased hate crimes, hate speech, threats, discrimination, and dismissal from their jobs because of their religion. They also experience physical assaults, no official recognition of the Protestant church, and a lack of cemeteries for Christians. Foreign Christians are deported or banned entry by denying them residence visas. The Protestant community in Turkey is not allowed to open their own churches nor train their own spiritual leaders, forcing them to operate as ‘associations.’
Similar persecution is a global phenomenon across other majority-Muslim countries. In the case of Somalia, Christians face the most severe persecution, according to the human rights organization Open Doors. Identifying as a Christian is a matter of life and death. Al-Shabab, an Islamic terrorist group, currently controls large swathes of Somalia. This group enforces a strict form of Sharia and is committed to eradicating Christianity from the country. They have often murdered Somali Christians on the spot. The dangers have increased over the years, as the terrorists have focused on finding and eliminating Christian leaders.
Almost all of Somalia’s Christians come from a Muslim background, and as converts, they face the greatest risks of persecution. Somali society is based around a strong clan identity, which is heavily intertwined with Islam. Family members and clan leaders view conversion to Christianity as a betrayal. As such, any Christian who is discovered is at an extreme risk of immediate violence. Open Doors notes:
Young female converts to Christianity remain extremely vulnerable, with many living in hiding. Commonly, a woman suspected of converting to Christianity will be humiliated in public, kept under strict house arrest, raped, abducted, forcibly married to a radical sheikh or killed. If already married, she will likely be divorced and have her children taken away to ensure that they are raised in an Islamic way. Christian women also suffer when their husbands are imprisoned or killed; many are taken advantage of by male relatives and the family often ends up impoverished.
Violent chaos is also a cover for persecution against Christians. The current civil war in Yemen, for instance, started in 2014 and eventually escalated when Iran-backed Houthi terrorists took control of the capital, Sanaa. This led to a full-blown conflict in early 2015 with a Saudi-led military intervention against them. Yemen is currently fragmented and controlled by several different groups, primarily the Houthis in the north and the United Arab Emirates-backed Southern Transitional Council in the south. Other groups, including al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and local tribal militias, maintain influence in various areas of the country.
Christians are not safe under the rule of any of these groups. Pressure on Christians is at a maximum. In recent years, Houthis have expanded their power, making more of the country increasingly dangerous for Christians, to the point that even secret house churches can no longer meet safely.
In Syria, after more than a decade of war and relentless crisis, the church has diminished significantly. In December 2024, al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terror group took over Damascus, overthrowing the regime of Bashar Assad and escalating persecution against religious minorities. As Open Doors reports,
The new authority’s Sunni Islamic background has caused deep anxiety among the Christian population. Islamic influence now controls state and government facilities. “Everywhere, a sheik appears to be making key decisions, in the government but also in the checkpoints,” several church leaders share.
“I live in fear for my family. Throughout the year, my children saw a lot of different people with beards and guns, calling their mother an infidel. They are now scared to go to the streets or go to the church on their own,” expresses Wael. He is a worker in one of the churches in Homs.
Throughout the year, daily life became more challenging for Christians in Syria because of different forms of persecution. Most devastating was the June 22nd bombing of St. Elias Church in Dweila, Damascus. 25 people were killed (22 of them Christians), and about 60 Christians were injured. For a week following the terror attack, churches all around Syria were almost empty, and all activities were postponed.
In Afghanistan, the church is deeply underground. There is no publicly accessible church in the country; for almost fifty years, Afghanistan has not had an official church building. The only functioning chapel was reported to be in the basement of the Italian embassy in Kabul. It was only open for the small number of expatriates still working in the city—mainly diplomatic and military staff—but it is closed for the time being. Christian materials are hidden, and even sharing them electronically can have life-threatening consequences if traced. Because of the Taliban, there are no visible expressions of Christianity in the country.
In Algeria, all Protestant churches have been forced to close. At least eighteen Christians are facing prison sentences because of their religion. One of these Christians is the Protestant Church of Algeria’s vice-president, Pastor Youssef Ourahmane, who was sentenced in 2024 to one year in prison, six months suspended, and 100,000 dinars in fines for holding an unauthorized religious assembly and conducting worship in a building not authorized for that purpose.
All Catholics in Algeria who proselytize (a term left open to local interpretation) are liable to criminal prosecution and deportation if they are not Algerian nationals, reports the European Center of Law and Justice (ECLJ):
The Catholic Church was reduced to witnessing only through charity. However, since the Algerian government has imposed the closure of the Caritas Algeria organization on October 1, 2022, this is now also forbidden. Jean-Paul Vesco, Archbishop of Algiers, has said he does not want to “come into conflict with the authorities” and wanted to “continue to do good without making noise.”
In majority-Muslim countries, Christians with a Muslim background bear the brunt of persecution. Even in post-Soviet countries whose governments are secular, Christian converts from Islam are severely persecuted.
In Kyrgyzstan, for instance, there has been a sharp increase in violence against the church. Many registered churches and Christian institutions were forced to close, and pressure on Christians has increased in nearly all spheres of life. Open Doors notes,
Kyrgyzstan’s culture is founded on Islamic values and traditions. 70 years of atheism during the Soviet era did not succeed in wiping this out. Rural areas are particularly affected, so Christians with a Muslim background not only have to cope with oppression from the government, but also from society around them. For instance, there have often been reports over the years of burials for converts to Christianity being blocked by Muslim villagers.”
13 out of the 20 most dangerous countries to be Christian are in sub-Saharan Africa, where 16.2 million Christians are currently displaced. In many African countries (such as Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, and Sudan) Christians face violent persecution at the hands of Islamic terrorists. These countries have become breeding grounds for targeted attacks against Christians, with Nigeria being the most severe case.
The latest updated report by the organization Intersociety says that between 2010 and October 2025, at least 185,000 people in Nigeria were killed by Islamic groups on account of their faith. This includes 125,000 Christians and 60,000 nonviolent Muslims. The entire population of Nigeria is close to 240 million. In addition, 19,100 churches were burned to the ground, and 1,100 entire Christian communities were seized and occupied by jihadist forces.
Christians continue to be detained without trial, arrested, sentenced, and imprisoned for their faith in majority-Muslim countries such as Eritrea, Bangladesh, and Iran, amongst others. On December 9, Article 18 (a human rights group) reported that five Iranian Christians were sentenced to a combined more than 50 years in prison on charges related to ordinary religious activities such as praying, performing baptisms, taking Communion, and celebrating Christmas. In recent years, hundreds of Christians in Iran have been arrested and jailed.
In countries ruled by Sharia (Islamic law), it is impossible to openly convert to Christianity and remain safe and free. Qatar is one of the most extreme cases against Christian converts. Christians in Qatar face persecution, which includes restrictions from the government and society. Qataris and migrants from Muslim families who are Christian converts cannot openly practice Christianity. The only recognized Christians are migrant workers from non-Muslim countries. They are only permitted to meet in specific churches. Christian migrant workers face danger if they are suspected to have shared their faith with local people. There is an official religious complex outside the capital, Doha, where a select number of churches can gather. Qatari citizens are not allowed to enter, and migrant Christians must not speak about Christianity to Muslims. If they do, they may be arrested or deported.
Anybody suspected of being a Christian, particularly a Qatari or someone from a Muslim-majority country, can face discrimination, harassment, and police monitoring. Changing one’s faith from Islam is not officially recognized, which can cause legal problems around marriage and property ownership. A married Christian convert, if discovered, is likely to face divorce and lose custody of their children. Qatar is increasingly using advanced technology to monitor both citizens and immigrants. Christian converts from a Muslim background usually keep their faith secret. A woman who converts to Christianity may experience house arrest, sexual violence, or, in the most extreme cases, so-called ‘honor killing.’ Authorities do not interfere in what happens in the family home, so there is little chance of legal justice.
In Egypt, the indigenous Coptic Christians experience increasing persecution by the government and society. Coptic Christian women face an epidemic of kidnapping, rape, beatings, and torture at the hands of Muslim men. Hundreds of Coptic girls and women have been abducted, forced to convert to Islam, and coerced into marriage. The latest victim is Samah Nashed Ageeb, a 27-year-old married Coptic woman and mother of a seven-year-old son, who has been missing since December 9. In a video posted on social media, Samah’s father made an appeal to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, asking for urgent intervention to help secure his daughter’s return.
Copts have survived centuries of horrific persecution since the first Arab Muslim invasion in the 7th Century to the Memlouks, and Turks. They lost countless lives to rulers intent on forcing them to convert to Islam through torture, imprisonment, unbearable taxation, starvation, cruelty, and every method conceivable to lure them away from their faith.”
All indigenous peoples from the Middle East to North Africa who were invaded by Muslim armies—first by the Arabs and later by Ottoman Turks—faced persecution, massacres and forced conversions.
What is even more tragic is most of those countries were majority-Christian before their violent conquests by Islam starting in the seventh century. Centuries later, Christians are now a beleaguered, oppressed minority—a reality largely ignored by Western governments and mainstream media.
Kelsey Zorzi, Director of Advocacy for Global Religious Freedom with ADF International, told europeanconservative.com:
Too often, mainstream Western media overlook attacks on Christian communities or the use of egregious criminal charges against Christians for peacefully living out their faith. Yet the media plays a critical role in holding to account governments that permit or tolerate persecution, and sustained, contextual reporting has repeatedly shown it can move the needle—prompting diplomatic pressure, legal reform, and greater protection for vulnerable religious communities.
Western governments must make the protection of religious freedom a non-negotiable part of their foreign policy. This requires sustained pressure—backed by real consequences—to repeal blasphemy and apostasy laws, to permit religious conversion without fear of punishment, to reverse growing restrictions on religious expression, including online, and to ensure that Christians and other religious minorities can worship freely and safely with their co-religionists in their places of worship, including pathways for asylum or relocation for those facing severe persecution.
Where Christians are targeted by radical non-state actors, states have a clear obligation under international law to prevent such attacks, protect vulnerable communities, and ensure accountability. Multilateral institutions, including the UN, must likewise prioritize these rights and address violations consistently rather than treating them as politically sensitive or secondary.
As more than 5% of deaths in Canada now are caused by assisted suicide, the very idea has become a part of the culture, with the inevitable results.
Now, it arises that a successful actress who has a loving family and friends insists to die by assisted suicide ‘because she cannot overcome horrific mental illnesses’.
“Claire Brosseau, 48, was diagnosed with manic depression when she was 14 years old after she went on a wild drug, alcohol and sex-filled bender. Brosseau would later be identified as having anxiety, chronic suicidal ideation, an eating disorder, personality disorder, substance abuse disorder, PTSD, and a slew of other mental health conditions.”
She reportedly attempted suicide after treatment by psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors, as well as trying medications, therapies and guided psychedelics.
She says nothing improved her mental health.
“Brosseau, who has neither a partner nor children, decided in 2021 that she would apply for euthanasia under Canada’s Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) program.
MAiD is a process that allows adults suffering from a ‘grievous and irremediable medical condition’ to end their life with the assistance of a doctor. Patients whose chronic illnesses are solely mental health-related, however, are not yet eligible for MAiD.”
Acclaimed actress, 48, says she plans to die by assisted suicide because she cannot overcome her mental illness https://t.co/oaYGXZLu52
People with mental health issues will only have access to MAiD in 2027, leading the actress to file a complaint with the Ontario Superior Court alleging genuine rights violations.
Just as she started to make a name for herself, she suffered another in a series of depressive episodes.
“’I had a great place to stay and I was doing well on the film and I was having fun on set, and every night I would go back to my hotel and I would bawl and scream and rip my clothes apart’. she told the NY Times. ‘And cry and just — I wanted to kill myself and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. And then the next day at work, I’d be fine and I’d have so much fun’.”
People are generally fairly tolerant. The British accepted generations of mass migration but they’re reaching a limit in part because it’s become so blatantly abusive and so have the authorities, like the Starmer regime, which locks up people for tweeting about the dangers of Islamic terrorism, and then welcomes an Egyptian Muslim terrorist supporter to move to the UK because his mother was British.
Is it any wonder that numbers like this are showing up?
“According to the IPPR’s findings, 36% of people now think you must be born British to be truly British, up from 19% in 2023.”
The usual media spin is that there’s a:”rising tide of ethno-nationalism in Britain”. Which indeed there is. It’s not coming from the indigenous population which is still generally being fairly tolerant, but from Muslim mass migration which is entirely based on ethno and theological nationalism. The forces doing this have tried silencing and even jailing people and the poll should be a wake-up call and a warning that it’s backfiring. If they’re really concerned about intolerance, then the thing to do is to stop mass importing an intolerant group into the UK and then allowing it to terrorize the population while locking up anyone who speaks out about it.
Instead, the Left believes it can use the backlash for an even harsher crackdown as it did after a Muslim terrorist brutally murdered 3 little girls and the Starmer regime all but declared martial law.
Taking to Facebook as 2025 draws to a close, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó posted to reiterate Hungary’s opposition to migration, with the EU Migration Pact set to take effect in the coming year.
“It’s important to make it clear to everyone that, just as in 2025, we will not allow a single migrant into Hungary in 2026, nor will we pay a single forint of Hungarian taxpayers’ money for other migrants,” said Szijjártó as the new year approaches.
Predicting a “Hungarian uprising against the (EU) Migration Pact” in the coming year, the foreign minister stated: “It may seem far away now, but one of the biggest battles of 2026 will be the Hungarian uprising against the Migration Pact that Brussels is set to implement in the summer. This is the regulation that, on paper, is intended to ‘make the European asylum system more effective,’ but in practice it would mean nothing less than a coercive situation for Hungary: pay or accept.”
Szijjártó further clarified that not only will Hungary not allow in a single migrant, it will also not pay for them according to Brussels’ penalty system, which he called “downright absurd.”
“We, who built a fence at our own expense and have been protecting the EU’s external border for more than ten years. We, who are currently being fined 1 million euros a day just for not letting migrants into our country.”
“To the west of us, they did not act and were unable or unwilling to defend themselves against migrants. These are countries where the security situation has deteriorated to such an extent that it is tearing apart the social fabric, and that is why they now want to get rid of migrants under the Migration Pact,” Hungary’s foreign minister wrote.
“We say no to this in 2026 (as well), and we say it in advance: Hungary will not implement the measures of the Migration Pact. We do not want migrants, we do not want parallel societies, and we do not want to spend the Christmas holidays under the threat of terrorism,” wrote Szijjártó.
Calling on Hungarians to be wary of a Tisza-led government, under opposition leader Péter Magyar, Szijjártó said Hungary will become a mere puppet of Brussels if Fidesz loses the upcoming election in April 2026.
“But let there be no doubt, Brussels’ puppets would not do this; they would allow Hungary to be turned into an immigrant country. The Tisza and DK parties supported Brussels’ Migration Pact, but now they are keeping quiet.”
French authorities are mobilising a massive police presence in anticipation of violence and rioting during New Year’s Eve celebrations in Paris and around the country.
A total of 90,000 police officers and gendarmes will be deployed across the country, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said today. In France, New Year’s Eve celebrations are named after Saint-Sylvestre, a 4th-century pope.
This police figure includes reinforcements to address potential public order issues — such as urban violence, vehicle fires, and attacks on emergency services.
These incidents have become commonplace on New Year’s Eve, especially in deprived areas with high numbers of inhabitants with a migrant background.
In Paris and the surrounding petite couronne (inner suburbs), approximately 10,000 members of the security forces will be on duty.
This deployment will include police officers, gendarmes, firefighters from the Paris Fire Brigade (BSPP), military personnel from Opération Sentinelle, municipal police, and paramedics.
The minister emphasised the need to offer security for large crowds gathering peaceably in public spaces, while maintaining a stance of “fermeté et autorité” (firmness and authority) in response to any disturbances.
The announcement came during an interview on news outlet France Inter, where Nuñez reiterated instructions sent to prefects for maximum vigilance.
“On New Year’s Eve, there are many people who go out into the streets to celebrate the passage to the New Year. So we have to make all these people safe. And then there is the traditional end-of-year urban violence that takes place in certain neighbourhoods, where there are mortars thrown at the police,” Nuñez stated
In previous years, similarly large numbers of security forces had to be amassed in order to stop violence and rioting.
Earlier in December, this year’s traditional large-scale concert on the Champs-Élysées was cancelled to mitigate risks of crowd surges, following a near-miss incident in 2024.
Fireworks and other displays will proceed, including a video projection on the Arc de Triomphe. However, there will be enhanced crowd management measures, including traffic restrictions, access filtering points, and prohibitions on public alcohol consumption in designated zones.
The nationwide mobilisation reflects ongoing French concerns over public safety, including a persistently high terrorist threat level in the country.
A leading immigration expert has warned that Germany is facing a “demographic time bomb” if it allows the massive influx of alleged refugees from Syria to become citizens as they will be enabled to bring their family members to the country.
A Dutch social scientist who is described as the top migration expert in Germany, Ruud Koopmans, has warned of the massive implications for the makeup of German society that chain migration represents. He argued that the government should consider whether it is the interest of the country to grant citizenship to the near million supposed refugees from Syria.
Speaking to Cicero magazine, Koopmans said that while there has been positive steps made, such as scrapping the so-called “turbo naturalization” of allowing migrants to apply for citizenship after just three years, the standard five-year process remains in place and can still “be considered a demographic time bomb in the long run.”
“We have almost one million Syrian refugees in Germany. It is necessary to think about the consequences of this for the future. This one million people has a great overrepresentation of men. They will look for their partners mostly in the country of origin. This is extremely likely because in these countries, marriages usually take place within large families. In these societies, marriage is also an economic business between families, and the ticket to Europe is an important means of exchange,” the Dutch social scientist said.
The migration expert said that if past is prologue, pointing to the influx of guest workers from Turkey and Morocco in the 1970s which after obtaining citizenship en masse saw their populations balloon six or sevenfold, the same could be expected by the Syrian cohort that arrived after former German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the gates to migration in 2015 sparking the European Migrant Crisis.
Thus, it could be expected that over the next five decades the Syrian population could grow to a staggering seven million if no action is taken, Koopmans warned. This, he noted, would also hold true for other migrant groups, such as those from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia.
“One has to think about whether one should offer refugees access to German citizenship as quickly as possible. If they are German nationals, there is no limit to family migration. Then any possibility of controlling these migration flows has passed. This is a dramatic perspective,” he said.
Koopmans stressed that there must be a reckoning over what the actual purpose of refugee schemes are, saying that in contrast to regular immigration, in which the country actively seeks to recruit foreign talent, asylum schemes should mostly be temporary in nature and that those who are in the country for only a few years should ultimately be told to go back to their homelands as has similarly been proposed by figures like Brexit boss Nigel Farage in the UK.
“Especially with refugees, it is mostly about people from countries with very patriarchal, traditional family structures, where the expectation is much greater that there will be an extensive succession migration through marriages. This is not very important in politics at the moment, but if you look at the longer-term look, that should worry us,” he said.
Furthermore, Koopmans noted that not all migrant populations are equally able to integrate into German society and that certain groups are significantly overrepresented in crime, particularly those from countries like Afghanistan and Syria.
“People are not fleeing for nothing – either because their countries are economically dysfunctional, because there is war or because of oppression. These are dysfunctional states, and the people who come from these states usually do not have the education, knowledge and experience necessary to be successful on the German labor market. This explains why these groups are so overrepresented in social assistance statistics,” he said.
In addition to rolling back the ability of refugees to qualify for citizenship, the migration expert pointed to plans of establishing “repatriation hubs” in third party countries for illegal migrants, as has been done by the Trump administration in the United States with El Salvador and which Giorgia Meloni’s government in Italy is currently battling the EU courts to establish in Albania.
Although there has yet to be any repatriation hub scheme enacted in Europe, Koopmans said that there may be signs of hope, with signals of support from Berlin being critical to moving the bloc as a whole to adopting such policies.
“Until now, the choice was very limited, and people were forced to negotiate with Turkey or Tunisia. Now we have a much wider range of possibilities and can make better arrangements without making ourselves dependent on a country. This is an enormous progress.”
