FT: Europe’s problem? It’s too attractive

Europe’s soft power is threatening to undermine Europe’s soft power. Harvard’s Joseph Nye defines soft power as the power to attract. A recent global poll confirms once again that Europe has this in profusion. If you ask people in countries as diverse as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, South Africa and Brazil where they would like to live, if not in their own country, most of them choose the US or Europe. By contrast, far fewer want to live in China or Russia.

And right there is Europe’s problem. So attractive is Europe that millions of people would like to move here. Hundreds of thousands will actually try, risking their lives on flimsy boats across the Mediterranean. “It’s Europe or death,” said one. But the fear of uncontrolled mass migration is driving some European voters to xenophobic populist parties that not merely exploit but actively stir up civilisational panic about it.

Increasingly, 2023 is looking like a new 2015. The refugee and migrant crisis that began that year boosted the vote for the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany and the Freedom party in Austria — not to mention, for Brexit. Now the AfD is again growing in strength, even in prosperous German regions such as Bavaria and Hesse. The Freedom party tops Austria’s opinion polls. This week, Geert Wilders’ anti-Islamic populist party scored a shocking success in the Dutch elections. And we have elections to the European parliament next June.

...

Europe’s soft power is not just about its prosperity, welfare systems and quality of life. It’s also about freedom, the rule of law, tolerance and respect for human rights. In that same poll, respondents in many parts of the world said that Vladimir Putin’s Russia was not part of Europe “when it comes to its current political values”. Europe is associated with a set of values. But Europe is not credible as a continent of values if it violates them itself, precisely at the points where people from the rest of the world encounter it: at its borders, above all, but also in the reception of asylum seekers and the inflammatory mischaracterisation of people of migrant backgrounds already inside those borders.

...

Fail either in one direction or the other and the manner in which Europe addresses the consequences of its “power to attract” will start subverting another important aspect of its soft power — its values. Here is Europe’s soft power dilemma.

Not its values! Anything but its values!

Westerners really will bomb, sanction, and otherwise exploit the shit out of countries and then wonder why people are streaming out of them and towards slightly better places to live and go "Hm, is it our lovely and tolerant policies, or our fantastic environments, or our delicious foods?"