Refugees in Gabčíkovo camp. (source: Sme )
Concerns regarding work in regions with higher unemployment are much greater, according to qualitative research on 93 people in 14 groups carried out by the Department of Political Science at Comenius University in Bratislava for the Sme daily.
Moreover, the respondents claimed that also Slovaks who work, for example, in Germany which enabled entry of refugees, are endangered. Also their different mentality that was called a ‘different culture’ by several of those polled raises uncertainty in them.
“When somebody keeps telling you for six months that refugees are bad, but you have never even met any, you intuitively start accepting this opinion, but you have to rationalise it somehow,” said political scientist Pavol Baboš, as quoted by Sme.
Economic threats are less distant problems for people in some regions than terrorism since they struggle with unemployment on a daily basis. They do not see refugees as terrorists but rather as people who are willing to work for less money or abuse the social policy of the state, he added.
“People are very angry that the state has not helped them for years, it cannot take care of its own people and now it plans to help the others,” Baboš explained to Sme.
People who will vote for the first time, unlike the older respondents, did not see any threat in refugees. The migration crisis does not impact their decision reagarding whom to vote for, their responses showed. Baboš specified that these people were mostly university students for whom the threat of losing their job is more distant and who rather focus on successful graduation.
