Why are there old Europe and new Europe?

Due to different economic development, attitudes towards refugees are also different.

The so-called new Europe and old Europe are just expressions, which come from a summary of reality. Therefore, there is no artificial distinction between new Europe and old Europe. It's more like people realize that these two places are fundamentally different in some ways, so they are named separately for convenience. It can also be said that the EU countries with coal and steel as the core and its extension belong to old Europe, while the EU countries with eastward expansion belong to new Europe. Taking this opportunity, we can see the difference between old and new Europe: the most obvious difference between them is economic development. The development of new Europe is relatively low, while that of old Europe is relatively high. The founding capitals of the European Union are located in old Europe, which is also the birthplace of modern narrative. Many countries in new Europe belong to the early Soviet Union.

On the eve of the Iraq war, President Bush invented the terms "New Europe" and "Old Europe". Bush's insistence on launching the Iraq war met with strong opposition, which triggered the discussion on the disintegration of the traditional allies of the United States and Europe. Therefore, the U.S. government said that Western Europe represented by France and Germany was old Europe, while the eastern European countries that joined the EU and NATO after the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were new Europe, supported him in launching the Iraq war, and wanted people to calm down the discussion about the rift between the United States and the EU. However, due to the great changes in the Soviet Union, the so-called new Europe has been actively participating in the process of European integration with the goal of joining the European Union created by the old Europe, so this expression has not attracted people's attention and has not been widely recognized.

Therefore, the substantive effect of this statement was that at that time, the huge irreconcilable differences between the United States and Europe in the Iraq war were more prominent. As for these two words, few people mentioned them after the Iraq war. It was only in the refugee crisis after the Arab Spring that people mentioned it again according to their different attitudes towards refugees. Accepting refugees is the dividing line between old and new Europe, and Britain has left the European Union. Germany and France have a positive attitude towards the refugee problem. New Europe, including Poland and the Czech Republic, rejected the EU's refugee quota system and was sued by the EU.