LONDON -- The enlargement of the European Union, with the addition of up to 10 more states and dozens of new local cultures and minorities, is approaching.
But with it comes a renewed fear about large-scale migrations and the threat of social disruption and tensions. Few issues now raise as much emotion and intensity of feeling as the "threat" of invasion by foreigners. Evidence of this can be spotted in the increasingly shrill tone of politics in countries like Austria, which sees itself as especially exposed to migration from the east. Meanwhile, the applicant states of central Europe worry about a Slavic influx from the former Soviet bloc countries that lie beyond what will be the EU's new eastern border.
In Western Europe, both Britain and France have experienced sharp rises in immigration flows, admittedly not so much from Eastern Europe as from the Indian subcontinent, North Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean. But the pressures are enough to arouse general fears that EU enlargement will open more doors to immigrants in all shapes and sizes, some seeking work, some claiming refuge from political harassment (asylum-seekers) and some just slipping in clandestinely and then vanishing into the domestic scene to work illegally or engage in criminal operations.