Syria is in complete meltdown and Europe – with its laws and attitude towards the problem – quite simply cannot cope.
As I write, thousands of asylum-seekers are stranded at Budapest railway station, while others decided to hit the road and continue the journey to Germany on foot. Having crossed into Hungary, a member of the Schengen area of passport-free travel, they bought train tickets in the hope of proceeding on to Germany. Instead, they find themselves stuck in a limbo where the law either says nothing because it foresaw nothing of the sort happening or makes contradictory claims.
And this is not expected to go away anytime soon. Today it’s Budapest; tomorrow it will be Calais again – or the border crossing between Italy and France, or Hungary and Austria. Or it may be Malta again. This is the biggest refugee crisis since World War II. Thousands are crossing European borders on a daily basis. Germany alone is expected to have taken in some 800,000 immigrants by the end of the year.
Aylan Kurdi: the face of the human tragedy
In the meantime, the Mediterranean Sea has become a deadly route for those sufficiently desperate and daring to take the risk of crossing it – despite the perilous conditions. Thousands remain unaccounted for in the African desert and just a few days ago, more than 70 immigrants, including children, perished in air-tight truck that was supposedly transporting them through the Hungarian and Austrian borders to Germany. Hundreds have lost their lives at sea. But, undoubtedly, the publication of the photo of the body of a Syrian toddler washed up on the Turkish coast after a failed attempt to cross over to Greece captured the essence of the human tragedy that has seen 2,600 dead this year alone. Aylan Kurdi was but an innocent child for whom his parents dreamt of nothing more than a normal future.
EU’s outdated Dublin Regulation
And it’s not as if we weren’t warned. When the influx of asylum-seekers was such that the brunt of the problem was faced primarily by southern European countries, other European countries were quick to quote the provision in the so-called Dublin Regulation which required that asylum-seekers apply for protection in the first point of arrival in the EU.
This Regulation was the product of another time of smaller refugee numbers and less coordination between national asylum policies that left open the possibility of "asylum shopping", with applicants moving around until they found one protection system that eventually gave in. Those times are gone and the Dublin Regulation is well past its sell-by date.
Already – a few years ago – the European Court of Justice ruled that a refugee who had first entered and subsequently left Greece could not be sent back there because his basic rights could not be fully respected by what Greece could provide for refugees. One can hardly blame the Greeks. It not only stands on the frontline of the problem but the country’s public finances and resources, as we have known for a few years now, are stretched to the very limit.
ISIS: a problem requiring long-overdue resolution
The refugee crisis is, above all, a human crisis and we have to primarily consider it as such, but this does not mean that we necessarily have to ignore other important aspects of the issue. The refugee crisis that is bringing chaos to Europe has been caused by the situation in Libya, in Syria and in Iraq. It has been caused, above all, by the ways adopted by ISIS and Islamic Fundamentalism. Immigrants are, after all, desperately fleeing from the effects of the waged ‘holy war’ and the cruel forms of retribution for those who do not support it.
Some would argue that the current European crisis is a victory for ISIS, which has managed to destabilise Europe and get rid of thousands of its local rivals and non-sympathisers. And, of course, we cannot really know how many Islamic extremists, if any, have been smuggled into Europe along with genuine immigrants. But we do know for certain how far these people are ready to go to realise their caliphate dream.
So as Trevor Philips, himself the son of Guyana migrants to the UK, wrote in The Mail on Sunday, “the latest immigration numbers should be sounding a klaxon warning all over Europe.” And maybe this is true for more reasons than one. So playing down the man in the street’s concerns should not be on the cards. The problem has to be tackled in a serious, all-encompassing, manner
The need for immediate and effective action
EU ministers will meet for discussions in a week’s time. Of course, there are long-term measures that can be taken to address the issue – from separating economic migrants from asylum-seekers, drawing up a list of safe countries, faster processes to (if need be) repatriation and stabilising the countries from which asylum-seekers originate.
But there’s a short-term situation to be addressed as well, and that is where European countries who should know better have regularly failed to act. Pandering to the gallery of national electorates will not work.
While recalling the missed opportunities and the periods of inactivity can be instructive, it is important not to linger but to move on, because the EU’s asylum policy is in dire need of reform. We can address the problem in a humanitarian way without jeopardising the rights, freedoms and security we have enjoyed for years. This is no single country’s problem and European countries should act together. Passing the buck is simply not the answer.