Problemy społeczno-ekonomiczne jako jedne z najgroźniejszych wyzwań dla bezpieczeństwa europejskiego w XXI wieku

Social challenges with the economic background result from social stratification not only within one society, but especially between societies. The division between wealthy north (with the visible trend of growing standards of life) and poor south (where the tendency is reverse due to high unemployment rates, overpopulation, housing and health problems as well as water and food shortages) is being more and more visible. Economic migrations have become a commonplace and also a source of further and more complicated political issues. They are pushing multicultural approaches forward on the one hand, but on the other aggravate ethnic conflicts, stimulate xenophobic and nationalist movements. Assimilation problems resulting from reluctance of indigenous societies and resistance of the migrants because of traditions, habits, values and religious beliefs only deepen dissimilarities in perception of how the coexistence should look like. This in turn imposes certain legislative and normative problems on governments and local societies and their administration. Aging of societies, which is mainly the problem of the most developed European countries, which are host countries for economic migrants at the same time, does not make this problem easier. This article will focus on most durging social problems in Europe which have conflict-generating potential, i.e. overpopulation on the one hand and aging of societies on the other, poverty and social stratifi cation, migrations and resulting assimilation problems.