MOSCOW, October 30 (RIA Novosti) — Massive influx of immigrants to Europe represents a security threat, which must be dealt with cautiously, experts on migration problems and multiculturalism argued at the Unity and Diversity conference, at the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency on Thursday.
Marianna Orlandi, law professor from Italy's University of Padova, stated that the concentration of people who have fled the conflicts in the Muslim world in Italy's big metropolitan areas poses a significant security threat.
"The number of people reaching Italy from countries where Muslim radicalism is now widespread, in North Africa and elsewhere, generates a very high risk of importing radicalism and terrorism," Orlandi said.
"Along with terrorism, international organized crime continues to flourish in our country," she added.
The expert, however, emphasized that the life of an immigrant is frequently much more difficult than generally perceived by public opinion.
"Immigrants do not move anymore from their countries, they are simply escaping. Escaping famine, violence and death," she said.
Orlandi specified that Italy has taken between 100,000 and 140,000 immigrants, who have fled the conflicts in the Muslim world, in 2014 alone.
Executive Director of Bern University, Switzerland Christian Joppke said that government policy on countering the threat of radicalism among religious minorities has to be well-considered.
He claimed that the UK government policy of allocating significant funds to Muslim organizations in the wake of 2005 London public transport terrorist attacks represents an unsuccessful way of dealing with a multi-confessional community.
"The idea was that Muslim leaders communicate to the grassroots and calm them down… It turned out to be a big failure, because the Muslim organizations, which were supported by British taxpayers" money, were quiet radical," he argued.
Joppke explained that the United Kingdom has subsequently changed its policy to "muscular liberalism," under which immigrant organizations have to undergo a test on their subscription to the principal values of the British society before obtaining government financial support.
The modern debate on the effectiveness of Europe's multicultural policy was raised by the statements of the "big three" European leaders in 2010-2011. Back then, the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom denounced the multicultural approach as a failure.
