Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban casts his vote in the Anti-Immigration Referendum in Budapest, Hungary, Sunday, October 2, 2016. Vadim Ghirda/Press Association. All rights reserved.Wir schaffen das – "We can do it" – was German Chancellor Angela Merkel's rather bald slogan in the face of questions about her Flüchtlingspolitik (refugee plan) last year as migrant deaths increased and yet numbers of new arrivals continued to rise. This mass, outright opposition to EU policy by a group of peripheral states is unprecedented in the history of European integration.
The European refugee crisis since 2015 has exposed deep wounds on the continent. Fierce criticism has been directed at the refusal of central and eastern European countries to accept European Union mandated refugee quotas. These newer, eastern members of the European Union – all former COMECON or Soviet republics – were expected to provide open peripheral markets and obedient workforces for the west, but recent events suggest their national elites have other ideas.
Initial court challenges to the quotas by Slovakia and Hungary in December 2015 were followed this May by opposition to the European Commission's proposal to distribute refugees across the continent via a so-called "fairness mechanism" which would charge €250,000 for each refugee refused asylum in a member state. This mass, outright opposition to EU policy by a group of peripheral states is unprecedented in the history of European integration.
