by Edmund Kozak

The European Union is set to rip itself apart over fundamentally conflicting attitudes between its liberal, globalist leaders and its more nationalist, culturally conservative Central European members.

“The fundamental problem with the EU is that it attempts to conflate vastly disparate nations economically, culturally and politically into a single bloc. The best they have been able to agree in terms of long-term direction of the EU, is to disagree,” Ben Harris-Quinney — chairman of the Bow Group, the UK’s oldest conservative think tank — told LifeZette.

Indeed, a schizophrenic EU is quickly emerging in the wake of Brexit, as EU globalists accelerate their drive towards a progressive utopia in the face of an increasingly strong Central European opposition. It’s a conflict that was brought sharply into focus last week.

On Thursday, news agencies from France, Italy and Germany, in partnership with the EU, launched InfoMigrants, “a news and information site for migrants at every point of their journey: in their country of origin, along the route, or in the places where they hope to start a new life,” the website explains.

The site “is a collaboration led by three major European media sources: France Médias Monde (France 24, Radio France International, Monte Carlo Doualiya), the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, and the Italian press agency ANSA. InfoMigrants is co-financed by the European Union.”

But on the same day that InfoMigrants launched, Viktor Orban, prime minister of EU member state Hungary, launched a scathing attack on mass migration, echoing President Donald Trump in his argument that mass migration can serve as a conduit for terrorism.

“Migration turned out to to be the Trojan horse of terrorism,” Orban said. He said that Europe’s “Christian identity” was at risk and warned of “a dominant Muslim presence in western Europe in even the lifetime of our generation.”

Orban delivered his comments during a meeting of the European People’s Party (EPP), a center-right group within the EU. But that same meeting saw European Council president Donald Tusk viciously attack rising nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiment.

Tusk said that the idea that the EU threatens national sovereignty was “foolish and dangerous,” and claimed that conservative populists like Orban are “building their own model of security on prejudice, authoritarianism, and organized hatred.”

But Tusk and voices like his appear to be becoming increasingly isolated on the national level within the EU. Anti-migrant sentiment and concern over mass Muslim migration specifically is ascendant in Western as well as Central Europe.

A staunchly anti-EU and anti-Islamic immigration candidate, Marine Le Pen, has become one of the most powerful figures in French politics, while Geert Wilders’ PVV party, which carries similar sentiments to Le Pen’s Front National, is the second-largest party in the Dutch house of representatives.

Indeed, the same day Tusk delivered his anti-populist, anti-conservative tirade, EU Parliament president Antonio Tajani, spoke in defense of Europe’s “Christian values,” echoing Orban.

“We shouldn’t be ashamed of saying we’re Christian. We’re Christian, it is our history,” Tajani said. “If we leave our identity, we will have in Europe all identities — but not European identities. For this, we need to strengthen our identity.”

Moreover, while Tusk can decry rising right-wing populist sentiment until he is blue in the face, Central European countries are steadfastly refusing to budge off those views. On Tuesday, the leaders of the the Visegrád Group (also known as the Visegrád Four or V4) — Poland, Hungary, Czechia, and Slovakia — met in Warsaw to defend their refusal to adhere to EU migrant quotas.

“The Visegrád Group, including Poland, will never agree to blackmail and will never agree to conditions being dictated to them,” said Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, in reference to the EU’s threats to start fining countries that refuse to comply with the quotas.

“[Central] European member nations have been far quicker to acknowledge the deep concern of their citizens towards levels of immigration into the EU, but broadly remain supportive of the Union,” said Harris-Quinney, the Bowman Group chairman.

“They are, however, consistently frustrated by the dismissive attitude western European governments have taken over concerns over immigration towards [Central] Europe and indeed their own citizenry,” he said. “It is yet another wedge which is splitting Europe and the EU apart.”

from Polizette