Ayman Mustafa is a Syrian refugee surgeon who lost his wife and daughter to the October 2013 Lampedusa tragedy and now works at Mater Dei Hospital. Asked during a recent edition of Times Talk at which point he decided to pack his bags and leave Syria, he replied: “I realised that every time I left for work and waved off my family I thought it would be the last time. I wanted to hide a little bit and then go back. I did not choose to be a refugee.”
Like this surgeon there are tens of thousands of others who are just seeking temporary safety. But as boatloads arrive in Europe from the south and as tens of thousands walk in from the east, we have reached a stage where the migration issue threatens to break the EU apart.
As the Valletta Migration Summit was under way at the Mediterranean Conference Centre last week, EU states continued building walls to keep migrants out, the same walls they tore down 25 years ago. An Italian military rescue of a group of 100 migrants off Libya barely madethe headlines.
Still, the EU-Africa summit was a good attempt to try to kick-start an African continent mired in poverty and strife. The Paris terror attacks soon shifted attention away from it but what happened in Valletta is still worth evaluating.
An agreement was signed for the setting up of an Emergency Trust Fund, initially of €1.8 billion, to assist African countries’ development and encourage them to take back nationals who migrated to Europe. Some NGOs called it political blackmail, others said it is the first step towards encouraging African migrants to seek prosperity back home. Time will tell.
Overlooked in the debate, however, were the complexities of the African dimension. Throwing money at rogue regimes with no checks and balances could well fuel despotic governments. We are still not sure whether such funds will be used for law enforcement and border security.
The action plan coming out of the summit is also inadequate when it comes to opening safe and regular routes to Europe, including humanitarian visas.
A document was however drawn up listing the tasks to be followed up and reminded western leaders, too busy looking eastwards, that the migration crisis remains very vivid in the south.
But what made the headlines for all the wrong reasons was the informal emergency summit called by European Council president Donald Tusk in the wake of member states’ unilateral decision to impose border controls. Sweden, the most generous of European hosts, said it ran out of temporary accommodation and said it was forced to introduce temporary border controls.
It is disgraceful that just 130 of the 120,000 refugees lined up for relocation have actually been distributed among states. It’s the usual conundrum of EU leaders who acknowledge there’s a big problem but none of whom want it in their back yard.
In a frustrated tone, Mr Tusksaid the EU is now in a race against time to save the free-movement Schengen agreement.
While Europe struggles to absorb one per cent of its entire population in refugees, the biggest victims remain those who continue with their dangerous trek.
As winter approaches, the rough seas and the coils of wire spreading across eastern Europe will not stop refugees from fleeing. Unless legal migration channels are created, the problem will persist. Sadly, European leaders, scared of the political consequences, remain reluctant to do that.