Episodes
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Europe is experiencing the mass movements of displaced people in a way that it has largely been immune from for decades. Europe is experiencing the mass movements of displaced people in a way that it has largely been immune from for decades. The ramifications and manifestations of what is being called a ‘crisis’ are extensive, intersecting with national as well as pan-European politics, existing economic problems, xenophobia, fear of terror attacks, and much more. This crisis, in effect, seems to dwarf in scale and complexity any other crisis that Europe has faced since the end of the Second World War.
The manifestations are as disparate as the building of fences to stop people crossing normally peaceful borders, the deaths of people transported by smugglers in unseaworthy boats, EU political leaders bickering over a Common European Asylum System and the numbers they will or will not allow into their respective countries, and contentious responses to the disaster that continues to unfold in Syria. Alongside this we also see an upsurge of grass-roots compassion, solidarity and assistance to the displaced and others whose human suffering on a grand scale in and around Europe constitutes the reality behind the ‘crisis’.
In this issue of FMR, authors throw legal, practical, moral and experiential light on a variety of the multifarious issues and manifestations that make up this ‘migration crisis’.
We would like to thank Liz Collett of the Migration Policy Institute Europe, Madeline Garlick of UNHCR, Cathryn Costello of the Refugee Studies Centre, and Richard Williams for their assistance as advisors on the feature theme of this issue. We are also grateful to the International Organization for Migration, the Open Society Foundations and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs for their financial support of the issue.
We are also including with copies of this magazine a short readers survey. We are asking you to help us understand how you access FMR – in print and/or online – so that we can continue to adapt the ways in which we provide it for your use and interest. We would be very grateful if you would complete and return it, or complete it online at www.fmreview.org/readers-survey2016
Marion Couldrey, Maurice Herson -
Missing episodes?
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Creating space for smugglers and failing to provide humanitarian assistance are European failures. Opening legal routes to Europe could deal with both.
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While the high number of migrants and refugees arriving in Europe in 2015 has increased pressures and tensions, this is not a crisis beyond the capability of Europe to manage together as a Union. While the high number of migrants and refugees arriving in Europe in 2015 has increased pressures and tensions, this is not a crisis beyond the capability of Europe to manage together as a Union. We need bold, collective thinking and action to develop a truly comprehensive approach.
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While makeshift camps, such as those that have proliferated around Europe, may form spaces of resourcefulness and agency which cannot be accommodated in state-run detention camps, none of these temporary spaces is a definitive solution.
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Border practices at the Italy-Austria border are part of a wider trend of questionable practices used by EU Member States which render irrelevant both the Schengen Agreement and the Dublin Regulation.
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Refugees and migrants have been regularly subjected to widespread rights violations by officials at some European borders. The EU needs to allow more legal avenues for people seeking protection to reach Europe safely.
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Among those who have reached Melilla, there seems to be no consensus as to whether they see themselves as being in transit in Europe or still in Africa.
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If it is to live up to its own values, the EU needs to step up search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean and open up legal means for access to protection in Europe in order to avoid the need for risky journeys across the Mediterranean.
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Irregular migration by sea is not a solely Mediterranean phenomenon.
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Asylum seekers’ stories point to the need for effective protection for refugees and to facilitate greater opportunities to access it, both within Europe and beyond.
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