@ 30.11.2022

There is an interest in summarising some facts about European transnational and transcultural integration and to draw some unexpected conclusions.

A single European space began to take shape shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. Certainly, it would have been impossible to imagine the dramatic economic leap of Europe without the integration processes which opened state, then customs and economic borders and subsequently the creation of a single currency.

The formation of a common legal framework and supranational representational institutions such as the Council of Europe, and the creation and ratification of numerous European conventions made the European region a real oasis of economic, social and cultural development.

The openness of borders also had an immediate impact on the active immigration flows that poured into European countries from less prosperous African and Middle Eastern regions. And Europe was certainly forced to digest this huge human mass, giving its new inhabitants shelter and food, guaranteeing them protection and safeguarding their legal rights and interests.

Nevertheless, the famous European tolerance towards people regardless of their national, religious, cultural or other affiliations may not be received with such unanimous approval.

After several decades in the history of the European Union, there are many unresolved but deliberately masked problems in the socio-economic and cultural integration of European and non-European peoples.

The mass actions of Turks in Germany in the 1990s, the "black" riots in the suburbs of Paris in the 2000s, the scandals with offence to the religious feelings of Muslims in the Netherlands, the expulsion of Gypsies from France and the adoption of the burka ban show that there are many hidden and unsolved problems in the European system of inter-ethnic community.

This leads to the conclusion that the existing system of checks and balances in the European space often fails to deal with the harmonious coexistence of different ethnicities and cultures.

The current external conditions for peaceful coexistence are usually declarative in nature and are unable to resolve the existing contradictions in the conflict of interests of the various ethnic groups living on the European continent.

The European space is changing. The region is burdened with a large number of internal problems that are only masked by external prosperity. Unfortunately, no serious attempts have been made so far to find a common ground for reconciling the often diametrically opposed interests of the various nations.

The problems will grow, the crises of interethnic confrontation in Europe will become more and more acute and tense. Without the prompt launch of a new policy on inter-ethnic relations in Europe, we will see the degradation of Europe's development as one of the world's leading and most prosperous regions and the beginning of new serious conflicts that must be resolved, including by the use of force.