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‘Whiteness’ and ‘Europeanness’ A Danger to EU, ECFR Report Claims:
The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) has published a report warning of the danger that “whiteness” and “Europeanness” pose to the EU.
Titled “Welcome to Barbieland: European sentiment in the year of wars and elections”, the report discussed how many people have become “visibly disillusioned with the European project” in a way that has surprised those supportive of the bloc.
Rather than citing economic or energy issues faced by the EU, the report blamed, among other things, how “white” the MEPs elected by EU citizens are following the 2024 European Parliament elections in June.
“In most countries, non-white and Muslim people were underrepresented in candidate lists … no more than 20 non-white MEPs were elected this year – less than 3 per cent of the total, and well below the 10 per cent share that racial and ethnic minorities are estimated to account for in the EU population,” the report states.
“One might also wonder whether the EU’s normalised xenophobia may not put some young people off the European project altogether while habituating other young people to an ‘ethnic’ conception of Europeanness, and thus allowing them to feel able to vote for the far-right.”
Overall, the ECFR warned that there was a public “drift” towards understanding “Europeanness” in ethnic terms, rather than in a “civic” way it viewed as more constructive.
Such a drift, it added, was becoming more common amongst the EU’s youngest voters, further arguing that this same drift may stop more liberal-leaning young people from supporting Brussels in the future.
