Sabine Adler of Deutschlandfunk writes:
“No European country takes so few refugees as Estonia. 550 people are allowed to come in the next two years. “Too many,” the majority of the population says, according to a recent survey of the University of Tartu. The government is aware of the rejection and says the reason for the little solidarity is the Russian minority.
A quarter of Estonians would like to have no refugees at all in the country. The government, which is aware of this rejection in the population, but also knows the expectations in Berlin and Brussels, justifies so little solidarity by the Russophone minority. Every fourth Estoian has Russian roots. In total 330 000.
Eero Janson from the refugee initiative “Estonian Refugees Council” considers the argument to be put forward as a pretext. “That does not convince me, it is a distraction from the real reason: The problem is not the refugees, because we have hardly any, the real problem is racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia.”
… To this date, there is only one reception center for around 70 refugees in a village called Vao, far from the Estonian capital Tallinn. At beginning of next year a second is scheduled to open. There is no talk about integration, not with the refugees, not with the Russian-born, so Kristi Toodo of Human Rights Centre .
“Estonia wants to be a national state, which consists of Estonians, because so few are of us are Estonians. We have major problems to integrate the Russian-speaking minority. And these are people with similar beliefs. How can that succeed only in individuals from completely other cultures and religions.”…
The refugees do not stay. They go to other countries, where there already are friends or relatives. In Estonia there is no Syrian or Afghan community. And even the smugglers’ routes are not through Estonia.”
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Full article (in German): http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/eu-forderungen-estland-sperrt-sich-gegen.1773.de.html?dram:article_id=338327
estonia108: Estonia as every other nation in the world needs more coherence. This will integrate and strengthen the country and will disallow negative influences from inside and outside. Only supportive impulses will be able to enter the nation. For more information about the influence of collective consciousness please refer to http://www.invincibledefense.org/research.html
estonia108 