Refugee Crisis Pushes Europe to the Brink

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/border-closures-spell-refugee-back-up-in-greece-a-1080643.html

by ZoeZoeBee • 10 years ago

38 10 10 years ago

IkmoIkmo3• 10 years ago

The EU is a major disappointment in 2015 and 2016. Sometimes we forget: it's the largest economy in the world, home to some of the richest countries, the biggest political bloc, it's home to 500 million decently educated people, and a strong set of institutions and infrastructure.

And what is it faced with? An influx of 2-3 million people in about 2-3 years, a population growth of roughly half a percent spread out over a few years. Most of them from Syria, a country which 5 years ago was on the whole a reasonably decent place on par with countries like Moldova which is on track to join the EU, and close to Bulgaria which already has joined the EU. These refugees can have a sustainable place in Europe.

Yet Europe's being 'pushed to the brink', not for lack of resources... Europe has all the resources and the size to deal with what is, in the grand scheme of things (or in comparison with some actually major challenges in Europe's history, like say a world war) completely and utterly infinitesimal. But there's a complete failure of sensible vision and policy, politically Europe has failed on this topic in a way I wouldn't have predicted if you'd told me the numbers of the refugee crisis in 2010 and asked me if I thought whether we could deal with it in a proper manner, I'd have said yes. It looks like we're being ruled by fear and any political union that may have existed seems to rapidly disintegrate.

aries19802• 10 years ago

The distribution of the refugees is not homogeneous. Migrants tend to live together, and because of this and the "freedom of movement", soon ghettos (I mean the original term here) will build up and there will be no cohesion to integrate them into the existing society. If the freedom of movement would be applied to EEA citizens only, the problem would be lesser.

Zenst• 10 years ago

Europe is not the largest economey in the World at all, indeed how do you define rich when you look at debt you will see many EU countries actualy have the largest debt inthe World, that is not rich!

Real issue is how the World handles asylum as the current system was designed for small volumes of people, groups, individuals and not as we have seen, whole countries.

You could euqaly ask why many Middle Eastern countries who have far less debt and far more wealth seem to not wish any refugees of the same religion into there country and yet they are happy to spend it on luxury items.

So please do look at the true financial state of a country and include debt next time before you make such wide dispersions.

Equaly the whole aslyum system needs a overhall, nobody wants to see people suffer, let alone millions who happily give money to criminals to enter a country illegaly after a long and dangerous journey and the whole applicaiton for asyum should be mroe refined in that aspect.

Indeed the UK has and does take refugee's, not those who break into Europe who happily paid criminals but those at refugee camps, those unable or unwilling to pay people smugglers to make such journeys, those disabled who are unable to travel of there own accord.

THose are what I class as refugee's and they are the ones in need of help more than all the others and yet they get ignored by the media and rhetoric of others from all sides, that is not right. After all akin to having lots of greedy people queue jump you and take all the places after you followed all the rules to get a place. So with that the whole system is unfair on all sides and does need improving.

One could say with this volume and hindsight could of built a new country and towns in area's more suited culturaly and geopgraphicly.

Equally also worth remembering that by absorbing these people en-mass then erosion of culture and loss of that will happen, on many levels and that is a loss.

IkmoIkmo3• 10 years ago

Europe is not the largest economey in the World at all, indeed how do you define rich when you look at debt you will see many EU countries actualy have the largest debt inthe World, that is not rich!

I did not say rich, I said large. It is, objectively, the largest, measured by GDP. Of course you can look at many measures, feel free to suggest your own, but currently economists tend to look at GDP and on that basis the EU is the world's largest economy period.

Real issue is how the World handles asylum as the current system was designed for small volumes of people, groups, individuals and not as we have seen, whole countries.

Sort of. The laws and treaties were actually shaped for large volumes of people, in times much worse than today. For example I mentioned the first world war, where 1 million Belgians fled north to a country of 6 million. That was just one of the many refugee groups during that time, but even this small example completely dwarfs the 2-3 million refugees that currently 'flood' into the EU which has a size of 500 million people and is orders of magnitude richer than the Netherlands was during WW1.

And it's not like we've not seen this happen before in more recent times. Take the Yugoslav wars, 4 million people were displaced, many of them coming to EU countries in the way Syrians do, today.

So of course, our system does not consistently have free capacity for millions of new people, e.g. in terms of housing... that makes no economic sense. But our countries do have the resources to create such capacity and take these people in, as do our countries have the obligation to on the basis of treaties which indeed were formed not for small volumes or during easy times, but for large volumes on the basis of experiences in times much worse than today.

You could euqaly ask why many Middle Eastern countries who have far less debt and far more wealth seem to not wish any refugees of the same religion into there country and yet they are happy to spend it on luxury items.

Yes, you could. And the answer is, they're shitty countries with shitty leaders. Nobody defends them. But I don't live there, I don't vote there, I have no influence there. I live in Europe and I have a small vote, a small voice, and little influence and that's why I talk about what we're doing. One way or another this issue must be addressed, let's not be kids and yell 'but they're doing nothing, either'. That's inhumane. Imagine a child is drowning in a pool and there's 10 people who can save him, some of whom are not clothed like you are and won't get their clothes wet, some of them who are better swimmers, some of them who were already in the pool having fun anyway... But they don't save the kid. Do you stand there and yell at them to do something? Or do you save the kid and get angry at them?

Equaly the whole aslyum system needs a overhall

I think everyone agrees with you. There's nobody from any political perspective who thinks things are going well right now.

Indeed the UK has and does take refugee's, not those who break into Europe who happily paid criminals but those at refugee camps, those unable or unwilling to pay people smugglers to make such journeys, those disabled who are unable to travel of there own accord.

Don't talk to me about the UK, they're almost as bad as those middle eastern countries you refer to. Which excludes by the way, say Jordan, which has 600 thousand, not Turkey which has 2-3 million, not Lebanon which has 1 million, on a population of 4.5 million! Don't ignore them. But the UK is almost as bad as e.g. Saudi Arabia (one of the wests' favourite partners in the middle east, don't know why). The UK granted 13 thousand people asylum in 2015, that's offensive and morally wrong.

Also don't talk to me about illegal this and criminal that. When you know a tsunami is about to hit your city and you need to get away, do you steal a car and drive out the city or sit there and die? Of course you take the car, and it'd be illegal, and nobody with a brain should give a shit. But pundits use that to dehumanise refugees and act like they're criminal and exploitative, when in reality they're fleeing for their lives and need help, often taking huge risks with their own lives to get to safety. And guess why this crime is needed? Because countries are not taking their responsibility, countries like the UK which take in 13 thousand people, that sort of behaviour calls for breaking the law. If millions are fleeing and one of the top 20 most powerful countries in the world takes in a tiny fraction of a percent of them legally, that's when people resort to crime to get to safety.

Equally also worth remembering that by absorbing these people en-mass then erosion of culture and loss of that will happen, on many levels and that is a loss.

I don't feel threatened by 3 million human beings joining a diverse union of 500 million people. What kind of 'en masse' are you talking about? Of course there are risks, there will be issues, there is friction, OF COURSE. And my question is, SO WHAT? Do we leave these millions to rot? The answer is no. Further, if we do not let them in, they'll still come, but now we don't know who or where they are, and then you have problems with a group of people who can't work, can't get education, can't get decent housing.

eliteraspberrie• 10 years ago

This is such a self-inflicted problem.

Europe could decide to open their borders, and they would be fine. The US deals with much larger migrations every year. Or they could decide to close the borders, and they would be fine too.

Instead they do some schizophrenic dance in between. Some borders open, some closed. Broadcast to the world that people are welcome, and greet them with fences...

Decide and do. Stop talking about how it makes you feel.

aries19802• 10 years ago

The US deals with much larger migrations every year.

We are talking about refuges here. http://www.state.gov/j/prm/releases/statistics/251285.htm The 1.5M refugees in the EU compared to 70K in the US is a huge difference.

aikah• 10 years ago

The US deals with much larger migrations every year

Are you suggesting that the "much larger migration" in US is provided free food, free housing, free counselling, free healthcare, free judiciary assistance, are taken care of by american public workers to guide them in their asylum application process ?

Yes it is a self-inflicted problem ( the west trying to decide who should rule in Syria, just like in Libya and just like in Libya it backfired replacing order by chaos). But confusing the situation in US with illegals that obviously don't show up at the nearest refugee center as soon as they cross the mexican border with millions of people coming in Europe as refugees seeking asylum and all the percs is not having spent 1 minute trying to understand the situation.

Broadcast to the world that people are welcome

As far as I know the only country who did this was Germany which is also, rightfully, the country that received the most refugees since they invited illegals to come there. So things work as intended.

What other countries between Turkey and Germany are asking is that Germany starts picking the refugees it wants at the Greek border, instead of relying on smuggler gangs to bring them to Germany.

IkmoIkmo3• 10 years ago

It's a bit more nuanced, although I get your point.

So the way I see it is that you can hardly close your borders, it's a myth. Countries are gigantic, if you want to migrate bad enough, you migrate. Building giant walls isn't effective or even realistic. You can make it harder and reduce the flow, but people will come. And if you close borders, that means you need to act accordingly. i.e., if someone does get through, you can't accommodate him, after all that would imply the rules are only valid for those who don't break them, but once you do break the rules and get in illegally, you can stay. That makes no sense, so now you've got closed borders, people still get in, but they can't start a life. Can't get a home, a job, can't become self-sufficient. Now you've got a problem of a large group of dependents, who face homelessness and desperation which leads to other issues, too (e.g. crime). And because they have an ethnic profile, that'll lead to a backlash of racism. Migration studies have shown time and time again, those whose place in society is facilitated tend to do well and become a part of society relatively quickly and become 'decent tax paying folk' with positive socioeconomic mobility outlooks, whereas making normal life difficult left and right for new migrants leads to the opposite, a new group of dependents that everyone hates on.

So closing the borders makes little sense. Further, tons of countries, particularly a number of Western European ones, are bound by various treaties and laws they entered in to themselves. Take WW1, more than 1 million Belgian refugees fled north to the Netherlands which was unaffected at the time, a country of just 6 million people back then. Can you imagine one in 7 in your country is a recent refugee from just one particular country? Not just that, but most of them came to the south. There were villages of just 15 thousand people which saw 100 thousand Belgians arrive, completely changing into essentially Belgian cities. Experiences like that and many other with refugees, shaped all kinds of laws, policies and treaties, which can't just simply be broken. So you need an alternative.

But then open borders is tricky, too. For one because there need to be two things. 1) some form of a check on whether the person is a refugee or not, and 2) some, quite small, level of friction, so as to discourage new migrants from coming unless it's absolutely necessary, and 3) some level of friction to slow down the influx and spread it out over a longer time period, so as to be able to properly accommodate everyone. That means decent housing, social programmes, employment or at least a level of occupation (whether it's voluntary work or education) to keep people busy, etc. Complete open borders means you'll get a bunch of non-refugee migrants coming along, and a large influx into a small number of popular cities that aren't adequately prepared.

So I understand the schizophrenic dance in between, with sorta-open borders. What I don't get is that the overal policy just feels hugely ineffective, that everything is moving much slower than need be, and that alarm bells are going off left and right with a society that's going crazy over a problem that's relatively minute in the history of European crises. Europe has the resources to handle this, but somehow it's failing.

acd• 10 years ago

US invades Iraq to find mass destruction weapons that does not exist. The real attackers from September 11, 15 of the 19 were citizens of Saudi Arabia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_...

ISIS is formed from a US IRAQ military prison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Bucca http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/-sp-isis-the-in...

We have created a stronger enemy than we started with.

Europe deals with above.

tetraverse• 10 years ago

Has this refugee crisis anything to do with the US decision to destabilize the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad regime?

Refugee Crisis Pushes Europe to the Brink

Related Stories