How to deal with inward migration is an issue which the EU must face up to, despite the political difficulties of doing so. EU leaders got bogged down in the issue at their summit this week when Poland and Hungary blocked the adoption of conclusions endorsing the recent agreement by justice and home affairs ministers on a joint EU approach to dealing with migrants crossing the Mediterranean, who mostly end up in Greece and Italy.
That deal – because only majority support was required in this case rather than unanimity – remains in place. It is unlikely to be adequate, but at least represents an acknowledgement that the problem exists and must be addressed at an EU-wide level. But the last-minute protests by Hungary and Poland – leading members of the EU’s awkward squad – underlined how tricky dealing with the issue of migration can be for individual member states and for the EU as a whole.
But deal with it they must. Last week, as EU leaders wrangled over the text of the summit conclusions, more people were dying as they tried to cross the Mediterranean in fleets of small and frequently unseaworthy boats.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), a UN body, calculates that almost 2,000 people have drowned trying to reach the shores of southern Europe this year, including perhaps 600 who drowned when a fishing boat, the Adriana, sank three weeks ago off the coast of Greece.
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The real figure, the IOM says, is likely to be much higher, as some boats sink without trace, their wretched cargoes unmarked beneath the waves. It is a scandal of the age, and it is not going to stop. More people are attempting the crossing, often in flimsier craft. The factors driving them to do so are not going away – if anything, the humanitarian and political pressures are worsening. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye.
Of course, migration is a difficult issue for EU governments, caught between inadequate facilities, the need to accommodate refugees from the war in Ukraine, and native populations often hostile to the arrival of foreigners.
But that is not a reason to duck it. Refugees fleeing war, famine, oppression or just seeking a better life will continue to take risks to reach Europe. A managed process where people are offered meaningful pathways to legal migration is needed, as are renewed efforts to disrupt the networks of people smugglers. Seeking to improve conditions in the states from which refugees are fleeing would also help. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said at the summit that the only way to ensure freedom of movement within Europe was to have secure borders. That is only half the picture; Europe’s borders can be secure only if they allow for the legal migration of some people into the EU. This is a problem that will not go away. It is long past time the EU faced up to it.