According to a recent research, the votes of young people can help the anti-immigration right to gain ground in the European Parliament elections in June.
The Guardian , young people in some parts of Europe are more anti-immigration than older generations. The analysis of EU-wide public opinion polls reveals that in some countries – typically in Eastern Europe – negative attitudes towards immigration are more common among generation Z or millennials than among generation X or baby boomers, observed the Magyar Nemzet.
The results also have implications for June's European Parliament elections and follow recent national elections - in the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and France - in which young people voted in unprecedented numbers for nationalist and Eurosceptic parties.
Across Europe, baby boomers (aged 59-77) are still the generation with the most anti-immigration views, but in some Member States millennials (born between 1980 and 1997) and Generation Z (born after 1997) have the same or even more negative attitudes towards immigration. for immigration from outside the EU. The Guardian's analysis is based on generational poll data published by Eurobarometer
The Eurobarometer results show that attitudes towards immigration have strengthened among younger respondents since the last EU elections, reflecting a general increase in anti-immigration sentiment across all age groups in the European Union.
In 2019, one third of Europeans between the ages of 15 and 24 (32 percent) said that they had a negative attitude towards immigration, but by the end of 2023 this proportion had risen to 35 percent. Among those between the ages of 25 and 34, the proportion of those expressing negative feelings rose from 38 to 42 percent.
This means that in some countries, especially in Eastern Europe, new generational differences in attitudes towards immigration have emerged.
In Slovenia, millennials are now the most dismissive of all generations, including baby boomers. Millennials in France are also particularly anti-immigration: 50 percent of this generation told pollsters they had a negative opinion, a higher rate than Generation X and Z.
However, in Poland and Hungary, Generation Z is more likely to hold anti-immigration views. In Poland, more than half of those born since 1997 (52 percent) have a negative opinion of immigration, compared to 42 percent of millennials and 39 percent of Generation X.
In Hungary, the majority of both generations have a negative opinion of immigration, but Generation Z is more dismissive than millennials. According to Eurobarometer data, Generation Z in Finland, Cyprus and Malta also has a significantly more negative attitude towards immigration than millennials.
The rise in anti-immigration sentiment among young people is in stark contrast to other EU member states, where negative attitudes are steadily declining across generations.
In Germany, Italy and Spain, the proportion of respondents who express negative views on immigration is constantly decreasing between generations.
Before the elections, one of the priority campaign topics of the right was the EU's controversial asylum and migration pact, which was recently approved by the European Parliament after years of failures and deadlocks in relation to the agreement, emphasized The Guardian.
The pact (which has been criticized by a number of rights groups) was widely seen as an attempt to prevent the far-right from capitalizing on a rise in anti-immigration sentiment across Europe.
Hungary and Poland quickly announced that they would not accept relocations after the pact was adopted.
Figures from Frontex, the EU's border agency, show that illegal migration into the EU has increased in recent years, although it is still far below the levels seen during the 2015-16 refugee crisis.
Cover photo: MTI/EPA/Antonio Bat
