The foreign minister of Spain has declared that Europe needs new blood as he denied the news that Spain is currently experiencing mass immigration.
Josep Borrell, Spain’s foreign minister said on Monday that Europe needed new blood to compensate for the low birth rate being experienced across the Continent.
He told reporters that the word “mass” was being trivialized after concluding talks with Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman Safadi.
The International Organisation for Migration reported that 21,000 migrants have arrived in Spain by sea since the beginning of 2018; it also reported that 304 migrants died in the attempt.
The organisation also revealed that Spain was the new main destination for migrants trying to reach Europe because migrants now avoid the Libya-Italy Mediterranean route, which used to be the main route. The Libya-Italy route is being abandoned in preference to Spain because of the dire conditions that migrants go through in Libya.
Armed groups kidnap mostly West African migrants trying to get to Italy and sell them into slavery. The migrants also suffer inhumane conditions in captivity and hundreds die daily trying to cross the sea into Europe.
It was also reported that migrants also attempt to enter Spain by land with about 602 persons managing to scramble over the double barrier between Morocco and the Spanish territory of Ceuta in North Africa last Thursday, while throwing caustic quicklime, excrement and stones onto police below.
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The Spanish foreign minister observed that the irregular nature of migration produces shock and fear on the citizens of the host country. He however downplayed the fears of Spanish citizens by pointing out that 602 migrants were nothing compared to 1.3 million Syrian refugees currently being hosted by Jordan.
According to the foreign minister, “We’re talking about 20,000 (migrants) so far this year for a country of more than 40 million inhabitants, that’s not a mass migration.”
Borrell re-affirmed that the new migrant arrivals were under control, despite warnings from NGOs that many migrant reception centres in Spain were saturated.
He suggested this could even help Europe, where many countries have a low birth rate.
“Europe’s demographic evolution shows that unless we want to gradually turn into an ageing continent, we need new blood, and it doesn’t look like this new blood is coming from our capacity to procreate.”
The migration problem especially from African countries and middle-eastern countries plagued with violence has fuelled right-wing, anti-immigration movements all over Western Europe. This anti-immigrant sentiment fuelled the vote that sealed British exit from the European Union.