Un conflict ideologic transformat în conflict lingvistic: refugiaţi sau migranţi?
An Ideological Conflict Transformed into a Linguistic Conflict: Refugees or Migrants?

Summary/Abstract: The growing arrival of asylum seekers in European Union opened a fierce debate about the socio-political, economical and security consequences of massive immigration in Western countries. This debate included a linguistic controversy upon the term used for the new-comers: „migrants” or „refugees”. In fact, it was more often an attempt to justify or reject the legal right of over a million people to freely cross European borders and a hidden ideological conflict. During time and development of the crisis, it became clear that many asylum seekers were not complying with the provisions of the 1951 Refugee Convention and were not even from war zones. This paper analyses why the Convention does not mean that ‘asylum shopping’ is allowed and what would be some of the consequences of an erroneous interpretation of the treaty.

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