Refugee girl on train tracks Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images

Bringing Europe’s Migration Crisis Under Control

The EU’s first expulsion of refugees has exposed the fundamental flaws in its new migration policy. While the forcible return of asylum-seekers to Turkey has caught the world’s attention, an equally troubling issue has hardly been discussed: the underfunding of Europe’s response to the crisis.

LONDON – The asylum policy that emerged from the European Union’s negotiations last month with Turkey became effective on April 4, when 202 asylum-seekers were deported from Greece. The policy has four fundamental flaws.

  • It was negotiated with Turkey and imposed on the EU by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
  • It is severely under-funded.
  • It is not voluntary, for it establishes quotas that many member states oppose and requires refugees to take up residence in countries where they don’t want to live.
  • It transforms Greece into a de facto holding pen with insufficient facilities for the number of asylum-seekers already there.

All of these deficiencies can be corrected. The European Commission implicitly acknowledged some of them on April 6 in a new set of proposals for reforming Europe’s asylum system. But the Commission’s proposals still rely on compulsory quotas. That will never work. Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans is inviting an open debate.

A comprehensive asylum policy for Europe, I believe, should establish a firm and reliable annual target of 300,000-500,000 refugees. This is large enough to give refugees the assurance that they can eventually reach their destination, yet small enough to be accommodated even in today’s unfavorable political climate.

We hope you're enjoying Project Syndicate.

To continue reading, subscribe now.

Subscribe

or

Register for FREE to access two premium articles per month.

Register

Support High-Quality Commentary

US President-elect Joe Biden may have promised a “return to normalcy,” but the truth is that there is no going back. The world is changing in fundamental ways, and the actions the world takes in the next few years will be critical to lay the groundwork for a sustainable, secure, and prosperous future.

For more than 25 years, Project Syndicate has been guided by a simple credo: All people deserve access to a broad range of views by the world’s foremost leaders and thinkers on the issues, events, and forces shaping their lives. At a time of unprecedented uncertainty, that mission is more important than ever – and we remain committed to fulfilling it.

But there is no doubt that we, like so many other media organizations nowadays, are under growing strain. If you are in a position to support us, please subscribe now.

As a subscriber, you will enjoy unlimited access to our On Point suite of long reads and book reviews, Say More contributor interviews, The Year Ahead magazine, the full PS archive, and much more. You will also directly support our mission of delivering the highest-quality commentary on the world's most pressing issues to as wide an audience as possible.

By helping us to build a truly open world of ideas, every PS subscriber makes a real difference. Thank you.

Subscribe Now

https://prosyn.org/1ztZTGT