Asylum applications are on the rise in Europe

 In the first six months of this year, asylum applications to the twenty-seven countries of the European Union, added to Norway and Switzerland, reached the figure of 519,000 applications, marking an increase of more than 28%, compared to the reference period of the last year. Of these requests, 30% concern Germany, 17% Spain and 16% France. With these data, the figure of over one million requests could tend to be reached, a number similar to the record figure of 2016. 13% of asylum requests come from Syria, equal to about 67,000 people, with an increase compared to the same period last year, by 47%. The causes of this real migration are to be found in the worsening of the civil war, which caused the worsening of economic conditions and the hostility of the Turks, who in past years had absorbed a large part of the emigration from Damascus, against the Syrian population. The migratory route most followed by Syrian citizens is the Balkan one and this affects the nations that collect asylum requests, such as Bulgaria, with 6%, and Austria, with 10%, even if these destinations increasingly represent transit solutions to Germany, which has a percentage of requests of 62%, thanks to the roots of the Syrian community, favored in previous years by Chancellor Merkel. Immediately after Syria, the second country for asylum applications is Afghanistan, with 55,000 applications; despite being a migratory basin that has always ensured substantial quotas of migrants, the US decision to abandon the country has favored the return of the Taliban, who, once in power, have considerably reduced human rights and practiced a disastrous economic policy, which it has aggravated an already difficult situation, forcing the country to rely almost exclusively on international humanitarian aid. While the origin of migrants from African and Asian areas does not come as a surprise, there is an increase in requests from areas of Latin America, such as Venezuela and Colombia, which together reach 13% of the requests, in their totality practically directed towards Spain, thus explaining Madrid's second European position in the ranking of asylum requests. These very worrying data are recorded shortly after the closure of the pact on immigration and less than a year after the European elections. The now customary resistance of Poland and Hungary to the distribution of migrants aggravate the internal situation of the European Union and highlight the lack of effectiveness and foresight of policies to regulate the inflows. The June agreement between EU foreign ministers provided for a sort of tax, in the amount of 20,000 euros per person per year, for those countries that refuse to contribute to the distribution of migrants and was conditioned by the vote against of Budapest and Warsaw; in Poland, in October, a referendum will be held on the issue of welcoming migrants, called by the right-wing government in office. Once again Brussels presents itself with internal divisions and without sanctions capable of dividing the migratory load, presenting itself to world public opinion as weak and easily blackmailed by anti-Western dictatorships, which use the migration issue as a real weapon of pressure for the 'Europe. This state of things determines, in a period where Western cohesion is increasingly necessary, a vulnerable side to the detriment not only of the Union, but also of the Atlantic Alliance. Agreements such as the one between the European Union and Tunisia, in addition to being ineffective, are signed with dictatorial regimes, which take advantage of the individual weakness, in this case of Italy, and the global weakness of an institution that cannot be united and which allows the prevailing of national rather than supranational interests. The Italian case, a real southern border of Europe, clarifies the situation even more: 65,000 arrivals equal to 140%, if compared with the same period in 2022, yet Rome receives very little aid from the members of the Union, worried about safeguard their own individual situations. Until this logic is overcome, with an increasingly serious situation, due to wars, famines and climatic emergencies, Europe and the West will always be under blackmail.