Report: Arab Spring increases migration to EU

Arab world turmoil boosts EU asylum applications; poll shows wide support for taking in migrants.

(Ynet) A new report says applications for asylum in the European Union increased by 16.2% in 2011 over the previous year, in part because of turmoil surrounding the Arab Spring uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East.

The report, issued Friday by the European Commission, the EU's executive branch, says just over 302,000 people applied for asylum in 2011. That is still far fewer than the peak of 425,000 applications received in 2001.

The commission also says that 80% of EU citizens surveyed agree that EU countries should offer protection and asylum to those in need. The same proportion believes asylum rules should be the same among all EU countries.

Cecelia Malmstrom, EU commissioner for Home Affairs, says the findings show the EU "needs a strong and coherent migration policy."

Europe's multicultural failure
In the past, prominent European leaders have said that the integration of immigrants in EU countries has been unsuccessful.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the multicultural model for integration in Germany has "miserably failed," while former French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that "the truth is that, in all our democracies, we've been too concerned about the identity of the new arrivals and not enough about the identity of the country receiving them."

British Prime Minister David Cameron also expressed similar sentiments last year, saying that multiculturalism had failed and left young British Muslims vulnerable to radicalism.