European Student Think Tank

Grow­ing immig­ra­tion flows from North Africa in the wake of the polit­ical revolu­tions on the con­tin­ent are becom­ing an increas­ingly big­ger prob­lem for the European Union. Mem­ber states, cur­rently hit hard by the eco­nomic crisis, are try­ing to tackle the issue, often by attempts to rein­tro­duce bor­der con­trols, thus revers­ing com­mon European achieve­ments. A Com­mon European Asylum Policy unfor­tu­nately remains unreal­ised, writes Aleksander Thomas.

Since Decem­ber 2010, hardly a day goes by without news of the Arab upris­ings. No won­der – such rad­ical changes can­not be achieved in a couple of days or months. Des­pite the count­less inno­cent vic­tims, the inter­na­tional com­munity and the UN find it hard to dis­solve the prob­lem­atic situ­ation, which now cli­maxes in Syria. The EU, as a neigh­bour, could not remain unin­volved in such a ter­rible situ­ation, which also “endangers” its interests and its coher­ent policies.

It has been stated many times by human­it­arian organ­isa­tions and the UN: Europe is no longer the safe haven for refugees it used to be. The EU-member states seem to be more obsessed with clos­ing of their bor­ders than uphold­ing the ‘uni­ver­sal’ human rights. But instead of for­ti­fy­ing the wall of Fort­ress Europe, it might be wise for the EU as a whole to reflect upon the deeper causes of refugee flows.

“You are only 200 000 years old, but you have changed the face of the world. Des­pite your vul­ner­ab­il­ity, you have taken pos­ses­sion of every hab­itat and conquered swathes of ter­rit­ory, like no other spe­cies before you”. These sen­tences are from the movie called “Home”. After watch­ing it, I real­ized more accur­ately what is hap­pen­ing on the earth, how humans have been dam­aging their home planet for so many years and what can be done to restore the earth once more.

The dis­turb­ances in the Middle-East and North Africa have now truly reached Europe. The past week­end, Italy star­ted dis­trib­ut­ing human­it­arian visas to refugees from Tunisia, who had star­ted arriv­ing at the small Italian island of Lampedusa after the revolt in their home coun­try. Around 25.000 visas will be handed out, which gives them full travel pos­sib­il­it­ies through­out Europe. What will be the impact on the other mem­ber states?

Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism is dead. At least, accord­ing to many prom­in­ent EU-leaders. It’s a shame though, that they didn’t present a feas­ible altern­at­ive to the mul­ti­cul­tural soci­ety. Should we say our per­man­ent farewells to the mul­ti­cul­tural ideal, or should we instead try to reform it, giv­ing it a chance to sur­vive? I’ll try to answer that ques­tion below.

A few days ago, Italy expressed the wish to sta­tion police officers of their own at the Tunisian shore. The reason is quite simple: a massive inflow of migrants fled Tunisia and arrived at the small island of Lampedusa. Res­ult: tur­moil on the islet. The Italian pro­posal to com­bat this tur­moil might seem a bit strange at a first glance, but isn’t entirely new. Below you’ll find an explanation.

We owe a lot to the ancient Greeks. European civil­iz­a­tion is without a doubt born in Hel­las. A quick trip to Greece will let you mar­vel at amaz­ing works of con­struc­tion: the enorm­ous temples and won­der­ful amphi­theatres are a treat for the eye. It makes you won­der why the ancient mas­ters’ off­spring, when it comes to archi­tec­tural inspir­a­tion, has degen­er­ated so much in 2011. Below you’ll find an art­icle con­cern­ing the Greek Wall.

The European Asylum sys­tem is a fail­ure. The recent devel­op­ments in Greece are clearly prov­ing this state­ment. To pre­vent crisis like these hap­pen­ing in the future, there is just one road to vic­tory: European­iz­a­tion of the policy area.