Contrition is rare in politics, especially when it comes to the divisive issue of migration. So when a senior European Union official lamented on March 23 that the bloc’s response to the 2015 refugee crisis had been “a failure,” it appeared to mark a turning point in a region where attitudes towards refugees have grown increasingly hostile.
The catalyst for this soul-searching by the Home Affairs Commissioner, Ylva Johansson, was the arrival in the E.U. of more than 3.5 million Ukrainians. And on the surface, much has changed since Russia’s invasion of its neighbour on Feb. 24.
Amid an outpouring of goodwill across Europe for people fleeing the war, support has come from unexpected places. A populist Italian politician on trial for blocking migrant rescue ships has offered to bus Ukrainians to his country; a British newspaper that published an article calling refugees “cockroaches” ran an appeal for the war victims; Eastern European nations that refused to take part in E.U.-wide refugee relocation schemes are now bearing the greatest burden with apparent grace and generosity.
But while advocates for refugees hope that this new crisis will force the E.U. to overhaul its failing asylum system, and extend a warm welcome to other refugees, some also fear that a repeat of the mismanagement of 2015 will erode the goodwill and even worsen conditions for refugees everywhere.
“We have to be able to scale up dramatically to receive fellow Europeans in their hour of greatest need,” says Jan Egeland, a former U.N. diplomat who is now Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council. “We have to work hard now for the generosity and the open door policy to sustain itself. It is a fight for the soul of Europe.”
He recalls early summer 2015, when #RefugeesWelcome became a…
Source : time
