The Vlaams Belang party of Belgium, a right-wing political party that aims for an independent Flanders, has started a campaign of remigration in order to convince those immigrants who do not adapt to Flemish society to return home. The Turkish motto of the campaign the Flemish party has been conducting is “Emirdağ’ın sana intiyacı var,” (Emirdağ needs you), while the general motto addressing all immigrants is “Return happily to your home country.” Fliers carrying the mottos have been distributed to thousands in Flanders.
Three party members from Ghent, Flanders’ third biggest city, who are in Turkey to introduce the campaign, talked on Tuesday with Volkan Bozkurt, president of the Foreign Affairs Commission in Parliament, and Mehmet Tekelioğlu, president of Parliament’s EU Integration Committee, as well as with some deputies from the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
Members of the Vlaams Belang party will tomorrow travel to Emirdağ, where the major portion of the immigrants in the city of Ghent emigrated from, and will have a talk on Thursday with Cengiz Pala, the mayor of Emirdağ, who they talked with in Belgium in October. The group also plans to visit some villages in Emirdağ.
Johan Deckmyn, who is one of the group members and a member of parliament in Flanders, said at a press conference held in Ankara on Wednesday they are in favor of remigration of immigrants who cannot integrate in society in Flanders. “If Turks don’t want to re-migrate, they should integrate into our society,” he stated. Asserting that they were not anti-Turkish or racist in any way, Deckmyn has complained that there are too many immigrants in Flanders and that the immigrants do not integrate into Flemish society. “A lot of Turks in Ghent have problems adapting and learning the language. There are Turks who have been living in Flanders for thirty years and don’t speak Flemish,” he complained.
Deckmyn also noted that Turks in Flanders have been complaining about Roma arriving in large numbers from Bulgaria and Romania in recent years, the newcomers being criticized for not adapting to the ways of the local society.
The Vlaams Belang party, which has 15 percent of the vote in Flanders, believes incentives should be offered to those who decide voluntarily to return to their home country and is in favor of the creation of a “fund for voluntary return. The party thinks those who would agree to re-migrate could also make use of the funds of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The right-wing party was criticized early this year by Turkish authorities for having prepared an election banner on which a drawing of red sheep with Turkish and Moroccan flags is kicked out of the European Union by a white sheep that represents the EU.
The right-wing party, which calls itself “Euro-critical,” is in favor of a confederate Europe and against the membership of Turkey in the EU; their conception of Europe is based mainly on geography and Christianity. The party prefers to see Turkey as a privileged partner in economy and defense. The immigrants are believed to constitute 10-15 per cent of the total population of Belgium, which also feels the pressure of economic difficulties covering most of Europe. There are approximately 200,000 Turks living there.