Europe’s politicians promised to “control the borders”. They spent millions of public funds on fences and border guards, but it hasn’t stopped refugees (The shocking, cruel reality of Europe’s refugee crisis, 3 September). Their number in Europe is still small compared to those refugees supported in the Middle East, but their arrivals and the consequent citizen solidarity have opened the space for political realism. The leaders of Serbia, Macedonia, Germany now accept that trying to blockade their borders is futile. The rest of Europe must face the facts too. Let’s abandon the official fantasy that states can always dictate how and when people cross borders. That approach has failed, and driven thousands of migrants to pay millions to smugglers and corrupt border officials.
We need a new approach, rooted in reality. Governments can help refugees move to their place of safety in orderly ways. Border control officials should end their slow, wasteful processes that deliberately keep migrants in uncertain status for years. They should streamline procedures to quickly grant residence permits to refugees and migrants who cannot be removed, enabling them to play a full role in our societies. The UK successfully operated this approach to Kosovar refugees. Labour migration policies should be realistic, fitting the growing demand for young workers. Migrants with no basis to stay should be removed after fair, transparent procedures. Migrants who have not been detained and feel they have been treated fairly are more likely to cooperate with removal: Sweden’s experience shows this.
Fortress Europe with its detention and threats of armed force has failed to deter migration. A Europe that treats arrivals humanely, consistently and quickly, with opportunities for labour migration through legal routes from home countries would reduce chaos and expense and allow for real management of migration’s benefits and costs. The alternative is increasing public chaos, migrant deaths and organised crime that harms all of Europe.
Simon Cox
Migration lawyer, Open Society Justice Initiative
• Both your editorial and Yvette Cooper’s calls for a more moral approach to the acceptance of refugees are commendable, but have very little real chance of happening. Europe faces two different migration crises: the lack of ability to control the entrance of huge flows of migrants from outside Europe, and the open border EU policies that means the continent’s nations cannot control the flow of migrants internally. Mostly as a result of the latter, the UK general election saw 4 million voting for Ukip and 4.4 million supporters ensuring they got the most votes in the European election. Furthermore, this public concern about the uncontrolled growth in migrants from European countries into the UK was reinforced by August’s record high net migration figures of a third of a million.
Most us are horrified by daily stories of confrontations at the borders, and deaths at sea and in lorries. But with the possible exception of Germany, there is no evidence that most Europeans want to grant asylum to migrants in the numbers seeking it. However, if the rules of the EU were changed to allow countries to take back control of their borders, then the resulting reduction in the migration of Europeans just might allow public sympathy for the plight of asylum seekers to turn into support for them to stay, until it is safe for them to return home.
Colin Hines
East Twickenham, Middlesex
• I am an Austrian national, living in Vienna, and I am experiencing the refugee drama in and around Austria on a daily basis. While Austria, a small country of 8.5 million inhabitants, has taken in thousands of refugees and will continue to do so, I find Britain’s refusal to take in refugees appalling. Perhaps Britain should be reminded that it is at least in part responsible for the chaos that followed the US and Britain’s invasion of Iraq. One can only hope that Britain will have a rethink at the EU conference on the refugee crisis on 14 September.
Peter Holly
Vienna
• In the understandable concern about refugees, one idea being mooted is for each EU country to be allocated a set number to be admitted. But how will that help when those EU countries who signed up to the Schengen agreement have dismantled their borders? Unless Schengen is abandoned, I fail to see how this allocation idea will work in the manner intended. We will still see some countries overwhelmed and others without their fair share.
Tim Pollard
Purley, Surrey
• The Tory/Cameron stand over refugees is becoming a factor in Britain remaining in the EU. The shambles of the EU’s response (except Angela Merkel’s) is making some people consider whether we want to remain in. Then there are the Germans and others who wonder whether we are worth having in when we can be so heartless. Yet the people and their representatives – Labour, SNP, Lib Dem, Greens and Welsh – are all calling for the Tory government to climb down and do what Britain has always done for refugees. It shows how appalling our system of government is: built on a minority of votes to carry out a mandate it doesn’t have. Let the churches, mosques and synagogues ask their followers to volunteer to take some refugees into their homes. I think we would find Yvette Cooper’s politically brave 10,000 would have at least a nought added.
Peter Downey
Bath
