It has been recently reported that between 5,000 and 6,500 Europeans have traveled to Syria to join the
Islamic State and the EU Commissioner for Justice said that 1,450
of them are French citizens.
The EU officials believe
that “the figures are strongly under-estimated,” as foreign
fighters are hard to keep track of, French newspaper Le Figaro
reported citing Vera Jourova, the EU justice commissioner.
"At the European level, we estimate that 5,000 to 6,000
individuals have left for Syria," she told the paper in an
interview.
Jourova added that the majority of them – 1,450 people – are
French nationals.
The Commissioner added that they are eyeing more measures to
avoid the suspected jihadists leaving the EU countries,
considering
“prevention [measures] rather than
suppression” of the flow.
“We’ve allotted a budget of €2.5 million to provide training
of prison and probation staff, as well as that of European
prosecutors,” Jourova said.
Note EU-Digest: But it is not only a question of surveillance and incarceration. It goes much deeper than that.
Europe is very poorly organized when it comes to the procedures/ceremonies surrounding immigrants becoming EU citizens. In this respect the US is far better organized. New citizens there are sworn in before a judge and have to pledge/swear their allegiance to their new country and flag by placing their hand on the Bible or Koran, depending their religion. They are also given a certificate of citizenship and small flag of their new country.
In the EU, new citizens usually get a letter in the mail advising them they have become citizens, need to start paying taxes and have to get medical insurance. All that without any official ceremony to "soften" the blow of the European bureaucracy coming at them full force.
Obviously this also makes many of the new citizens still feel closely associated with their former country and culture.
Every person has a need to feel they belong and are appreciated. Many of our EU immigrants don't have that feeling, and more often than not, this results in these new citizens having very little loyalty to their new country.
This is not their fault - it's ours.
EU Government's should start paying more attention to the semantics rather than only the mechanics surrounding an immigrant becoming a citizen of the EU.
EU-Digest
