Germans fear migration more than climate change, study finds – DW – 05/08/2024
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Europeans — especially Germans — are increasingly keen on curbing immigration and are less focused on climate change, according to a study by a Danish-based think tank.

Europeans — especially Germans — are increasingly keen on curbing immigration and are less focused on climate change, according to a study by a Danish-based think tank.

Europe has seen a sharp rise in the share of people who say that reducing immigration should be a top government priority, according to a study published Wednesday. Germany is topping the list.

At the same time, there was less desire to prioritize fighting climate change in the same countries, according to the survey commissioned by the Denmark-based Alliance of Democracies Foundation think tank.

Nearly half of German respondents put focus on migration

Since 2022, an increasing number of Europeans say their government should prioritize “reducing immigration,” rising from just under 20% to a quarter.

Meanwhile, concern about climate change was on the slide across the continent.

“In 2024, for the first time, reducing immigration is a greater priority for most Europeans than fighting climate change,” the report said.

“Nowhere is this reversal more striking than in Germany, which now leads the world with the highest share of people who want their government to focus on reducing immigration — topping all other priorities — and now nearly twice as high as fighting climate change,” the report read.

  • conditional_soup@lemm.eeEnglish
    53·
    6 months ago

    What I’m on about is that there are plenty of people who would be quite happy to make it the police’s business to enforce cultural norms. Governments probably should do more to ensure plentiful housing, but assimilation is something that just happens over time. The US has had its own assimilation woes many, many, many times, it’s never been the happy melting pot we tell the world we are. We’ve had cultural enclaves and backlashes and all of that, but what always happens is that the assimilation takes hold within a generation or two, regardless of how the older generations might feel about it. It’s something people are quite capable of figuring out for themselves, without getting the cops involved.

    Imo, people should be free to live and work where they please. Borders are the tools of tyrants, imo, but I don’t think we’re ready for that conversation.

    • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
      21·
      6 months ago

      What I’m on about is that there are plenty of people who would be quite happy to make it the police’s business to enforce cultural norms.

      And it’s going to stay that way, or become worse, if migration is mismanaged.

      Borders are the tools of tyrants, imo, but I don’t think we’re ready for that conversation.

      There is no political border surrounding Franconia. Well maybe district borders, but those are fuzzy and approximate when it comes to culture. Noone is stopping anyone from crossing in or out. But if suddenly Bavarians, culturally Bavarian that is not just as in the state, started to mass-migrate into Franconia boy would you see backlash: Franconians are perfectly entitled to want to stay Franconian instead of becoming Bavarian. Different language, different traditions, different mentality, different majority religion, different Idendidäd.