The juridical problems in regard to the concepts of refugee, expulsion, and migration are complicated. If one speaks about migration in Europe, one must 1st distinguish between Eastern and Western Europe. In the communist states of Eastern Europe the refugee problem does not exist officially, with the only existing refugee problem in Yugoslavia, which has signed and ratified the Geneva Refugee Convention of 1951. In the other East European states the right to asylum exists, but refugees are granted asylum only if they are persecuted in their country of origin for their communist ideas and activities. In speaking of migration, one must distinguish between migration, forced migration, mass migration, emigration, immigration, the shift of populations, and refugees. In the communist countries of Eastern Europe the right to emigration is not respected, although certain exceptions, as in Poland or Yugoslavia do exist. Generally, in the communist states emigration is not allowed and illegal emigration is punished as "Flight from the Republic." With a few exceptions, political and other persecutions are no longer so typical within Europe. In the last decades, the refugee problem has changed to other continents: Afghanistan/Pakistan, Iran, Sri Lanka, East Timor, Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan, Tchad, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Angola. The refugee problem in Europe consists mainly in the large afflux of refugees coming from places with other cultural (and religious) attributes. The Islamic immigrants declare themselves regularly as political refugees and hope to be acknowledged as such by the receiving state. The fear of the governments and populations of the receiving countries is that it would not be possible to assimilate such aliens who do not belong to the Christian culture of Europe. Formerly, refugees came mostly from the Christian countries of Eastern Europe with the same race identity and the same religion. For years now, more and more foreign workers are a kind of migrant within the European Economic Community, and now total about 14 million. Within international public law, there exists the principle of non-refoulement which protects a refugee (and also an asylum-seeker not recognized as a refugee) against expulsion or return, in any manner whatsoever, to a territory where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, nationality, religion, or membership in a particular social group or political opinion.

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Origin Europe, Eastern refugee population Migrants demography Europe Population Dynamics jurisprudence Refugees Political Factors Developed Countries Eastern Europe Western Europe labor migration Article migration international migration developed country Demographic Factors politics Emigration and Immigration Transients and Migrants Destination