2016 poses challenges of migration terrorism for EU

(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) BRUSSELS Jan 25 (KUNA) -- The European Union is facing with a string of problems including debt and financial crises rise of extreme-right wing parties and hard line governments and the visa-free travel Schengen zone.The continent also has other challenges such as Britain's possible exit from the EU the Catalan independence movement in Spain and worsening European ties with Russia due to Ukraine and Syria .However two problems migration and terrorism appear to pose existential challenges to the 28-member European bloc."The challenge to the European project today is existential" first vice president of the European Commission and the former foreign minister of the Netherlands Frans Timmermans said in a recent speech."The refugee crisis has brought that to light. What was unimaginable before now becomes imaginable namely the disintegration of the European project" he warned.Nearly 1.8 million migrants and refugees crossed into Europe in 2015 sparking a crisis that has divided the EU countries on how to deal with the influx. Some EU countries have erected fences and walls to keep out the migrants while some have introduced internal border controls.Analysts say that tackling the migration crisis will be very difficult in particular as the issue has boosted nationalist and extreme-right wing parties across the EU who are calling for a closure of EU borders in the face of the migrants.Appeals by European leaders to adopt a common stance to deal with the migrants crisis have fallen on deaf years .On his part vice-president of the European Parliament Esther de Lange said that "If I sum up the feeling at the beginning of 2016 it's insecurity and not only in economic terms if you look at the migrant crisis. We need to fix this together and what we see now is division." Europe is still under the shock of the two Paris attacks in January against Hebdo and in last November and the lockdown in Brussels the capital of Belgium after it was discovered that some of the Paris attackers came from its suburb of Molenbeek .The sight of armed soldiers patrolling the streets of Paris and Brussels shows that peaceful European capitals are now vulnerable to unpredicted and dangerous developments.The fact that nearly 5000 European citizens have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq has added the complexities to the fight against terrorism.It is not clear whether a so-called Brexit (Britian's exit from the EU ) could happen and when. British Prime Minister David Cameron has said a referendum on the UK membership in the EU would be conducted by the end of 2017. He is expected to renegotiate Britain's membership within the EU.Analysts are of the view that the situation in Europe in 2016 will be mainly influenced by developments in the Middle East the fight against the so called Islamic State (IS) the unsolved crisis in Syria and Libya and the Palestinian Cause.Moreover the crisis in Ukraine and the need to restore the EU-Russia relations are also expected to be on the top of EU's agenda this year. Meanwhile observers noted that fluctuation in oil prices is expected to influence the economic development in Europe.Summing up the unprecedented complex situation in Europe Sweden's former foreign minister and Prime Minister Carl Bildt wrote in a recent article that "the situation today is far more demanding than anything the EU has seen so far not least because of the sheer number of serious challenges that Europe faces." "Whatever happens one thing is certain: a year or two from now the EU will look very different. It might be a fractured union or it could be a vigorous union that includes the UK and has gotten its act together on refugee border and asylum issues" he noted.(end) nk.ag