We (Europeans) never bothered about cultural and religious closeness when we were occupying, colonizing and sucking goods from them, did we?
For sure mass immigration from illiberal non-Western societies will cause damage to the cultural fabric of Europe and cause strain on the welfare systems, but at least you consistently apply your moral standards to yourself and not just America and Israel when it's convenient. That is admirable.
That's not necessarily truth. In fact, most of immigrants are escaping from those illiberal societies. They want to have an European lifestyle. Become musicians, artists, engineers, etc... These kind of fresh workforce, who know what is it to live in poverty are actually much better at work and contribute more to the welfare system.
Looks like we still have about 2000 more years of self deprecation here in Europe fellas, so that we can finally atone for the things our ancestors did.
But only we, cause all the crap that African empires and Islamic empires did in the past are obviously of no concern. They should automatically be forgiven and forgotten... we don't, obviously, we have to pay trough all eternity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_European_coloni...
The Baltic States and Ukraine were part of Russia when it went through its imperialistic/colonization phase, reaching into Alaska and Mongolia, and Fort Ross as noted on the linked page.
The German Empire is conveniently listed as Germany on that page, which leaves out the fact that the German Empire consisted of land that is now part of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Lithuania.
Of course, these modern day countries were some times subjugated much in the same way that true colonies were subjugated. That being said, I don't think it's fair to say that Western Europe is solely to blame for world wide colonization.
The thought of those vikings sucking the fertile soil of Greenland dry fills me with guilt.