The refugee crisis is not testing only the cohesion of the European Union. It is challenging its values, the very system of values on which the European construct was founded.
The European construct, however, cannot exist without solidarity. The European construct cannot function without a just distribution of burdens. Yet, European leaders have been unable to do the self-evident.
The policy they have adopted on the management of refugee flows is a non-policy, and the solutions are non-solutions. The return to the era of Dublin I and Dublin II is no solution. Those agreements were transcended by events and developments, and by the flow of history. The world today is different, and so are the needs.
It is thus necessary for the countries that receive refugee flows not to shoulder the entire burden, or even a burden that is not analogous to their capabilities and means.
European leaders must understand that the Greek borders are Europe’s borders, and that the Italian coasts are the coasts of Europe.
A Europe in which each state promotes only its own interests betrays the spirit of its founders. It also directly undermines the future of its unification.
The cacophony that one witnesses is a sign of weakness. The unwillingness that one witnesses is a far cry from the old European value of humanism.
