The recent migration crisis in Europe once again became a cause for Russian media to “announce” about Europe’s eventual destruction. Russian media field is flooded by headlines, such as “Europe’s Migration Dawn”, “Extensive Migration Brings Europe Closer to Dawn”, “Migration Crisis Puts a Cross on United Europe”, as well as claims such as “Munich Caliphate will rule in place of today’s Europe in the second half of the 21st century”.

 

Russian media associate Europe’s fall primarily with the large number of Muslim migrants, spicing these assumptions with judgements like “Europe deserved it”. According to Russian media, the reason why Europe deserves such a fate is the democratic liberties there. The Russian media seem to forget that Muslim migrants prefer Christian Europe to oil-rich Arab countries and to Russia precisely because of those liberties in Europe.

 

Russia Is the First

 

However, the fears or excitement about the number of Muslim migrants in Europe, in fact, are not justified. Currently, Muslims in France form 7.5% of the population, 6% in Netherlands, 5.9% in Belgium, and 5.8% in Germany. In the other EU countries (except for Bulgaria and Cyprus), the percentage of Muslim population is smaller.

 

Conversely, the number of Muslims in Russia forms 10% of the population, i.e. more than in the aforementioned EU countries. Hence, if a Christian country is ever destroyed because of the number of Muslims, it will primarily be Russia, rather than France or Germany.

 

Muslim Population by Countries*

 

State Number of Muslims Number of Muslims in the Total Number of Population, (%)

 

Russia 14 000 000 9.5%

 

Germany 4 760 000 5.8%

 

France 4 710 000 7.1%

 

The United Kingdom 2 960 000 4.7%

 

Italy 2 220 000 3.6%

 

Bulgaria 1 020 000 14.1%

 

The Netherlands 1 000 000 5.9%

 

Spain 980 000 2.0%

 

Belgium 630 000 5.6%

 

Greece 610 000 5.7%

 

Austria 450 000 5.3%

 

Sweden 430 000 4.4%

 

Cyprus 280 000 24.5%

 

Denmark 230 000 4.0%

 

Romania 70 000 0.3%

 

Slovenia 70 000 3.4%

 

Croatia 60 000 1.4%

 

Ireland 50 000 1.1%

 

Finland 40 000 0.7%

 

Portugal 30 000 0.3%

 

*In 9 EU countries (Luxemburg, Slovakia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Estonia, Czech Republic, Malta), the number of Muslims is lower than10 thousand.

 

Only 10% in 2050

 

Interestingly, the rate of increase of the Muslim population in Europe is not so big as it may seem from media publications. According to the research studies published this year, the percentage of Muslims in the EU territory will not exceed 10% in 2050, including the consideration of migration trends.

 

Thus, there are three important circumstances that should be taken into account when discussing the migration crisis. First, though oil-rich Arab countries (such as Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirates) also have social care packages like France or Germany, the migrants from Near East and Africa escape to Europe and not to Arab countries primarily because of the democratic liberties there. Second, the sharp as it may be, the number of illegal migrants in Europe is not so big and will hardly exceed 10%, even in case of high migration rates. And third, even if there is a Christian country in the world that will be destroyed because of large number of Muslims, that’s definitely Russia, where Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated Europe’s largest mosque yesterday.

 

Hrayr Manukyan

“Union of Informed Citizens”

 

 

 

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