ZAGREB, Sept 23, 2020 – The world is becoming less tolerant of migrants, according to a Gallup poll released on Wednesday, which shows that Croatia was the fourth least accepting country for migrants in 2019.
In 2016, following a migrant crisis that hit the European Union, Gallup designed the Migrant Acceptance Index based on people’s views about having migrants living in their country, becoming their neighbor, and marrying into their family. These three questions were asked in 140,000 interviews conducted in 145 countries last year.
The highest score, of 8.46 out of 9 points, was recorded in Canada, while the lowest score, of 1.49, was recorded in North Macedonia.
North Macedonia was followed by Hungary, Serbia, and Croatia as the least accepting countries. Croatia’s score was 1.81. They were followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Latvia, Thailand, Slovakia and Turkey.
In the previous poll, Croatia’s score was 2.39, which made it the 10th least accepting country for migrants, while North Macedonia ranked first as the most unwelcoming country.
After Canada, the countries most tolerant of migrants were Iceland, New Zealand, Australia, Sierra Leone, and the United States. Among the most tolerant countries in Europe were Sweden (ranking eighth) and Ireland (ranking tenth).
The biggest drops in the tolerance of migrants were recorded in Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia after these countries took in a lot of Venezuelans fleeing the economic hardship in their country.
Bosnia and Herzegovina also recorded a large decline because of a large number of migrants from the Middle East in the country.
The global index fell from 5.34 in 2016 to 5.21 in 2019, mostly as a result of the changes in Latin American countries.
On Wednesday, the EU is due to unveil changes to its migrant acceptance system, under which member states would be legally required to take in a certain share of migrants, which is opposed by the Visegrad Group countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia).
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