Autumn winds, new beginnings!

For the migration stream which have hit Europe it has been a crucial year filled with events, growing tensions and contrasts. Let’s start this autumn, by really hoping that a path will be undertaken by Europe so as to cut off eventually all the cruelty and haughtiness that the flow of migrants have carried with it, so as to reach in the best possible way an effective solution both for the refugees and the European countries who welcome them.

Europe must collaborate and strengthen the idea among citizens that the EU is not a weak institution. The EU must inspire hope to the European governments and to the European citizens. Only if this is carried out it will be possible to welcome the refugees in the best possible way, if each single person belonging to a European country knows they are backed by a bigger entity perhaps the process will be easier and more smooth. All the desperate scenes which have penetrated our summer vacations, and hopefully more than that, our souls, must become the lighter for a common action and a wish to strive for deeper knowledge and respect.

Europe has been divided by this emerging crisis. Many heroic figures have come forth both single individuals or small national institutions, but on the other hand also a lot of extreme nationalistic views have developed and spread.

These days there have been important turning events regarding actions taken and on the 14^th of September there will be an extraordinary meeting gathering the ministers of the EU to discuss the crisis. What is necessary is a permanent and mandatory redistribution mechanism to tackle the refugee crisis so as to help those countries that due to geographical resasons find themselves in first line.

A lot of highly emotional images have swept through our news reports and internet of refugees arriving to German soil, in fact the country has been a main character these past days and has decided that it will allocate 6 billion euros for the migrants and together with France prepare itself to accept approximately half of the 120 thousand asylum seekers of the new outplacement scheme that the president of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, will launch soon at the European Parliament. Asylum seekers who will be redistributed from Italy, Greece and Hungary. Angela Merkel have deeply thanked her fellow citizens who have stood up and mobilized to help the refugees which have arrived the previous days to the country. The opening up of Germany is directed to Syrian refugees, those people who are escaping from the Civil War. Only they will be able to “jump over” the Dublin Regulation, the others instead must go through the processes stated in it.

Then we have countries which are calling upon the closure of the borders and building up walls made by barbed wire such as Hungary on its border with Serbia and Bulgaria along the Turkish border. Hungary which is currently facing an emergency situation being one of the biggest entry points, rejects together with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania, the idea of a quota system to settle refugees across the EU. The United Kingdom on the other hand prefers welcoming refugees directly coming from camps bordering Syria.

The European Union must tackle the fact that if the question: “Which country would you prefer to go to?” is asked to the migrants, most of them will answer Germany or Northern European countries such as Sweden and this should not be the answer. The EU should fight for a common policy for asylum and must agree on equitable solutions for the repartition of refugees. Once again this highlights the importance that the European Union must be strong and united. As an institution it must be multitasking, addressing the crisis, rethinking the weak points of the Dublin Regulation and enlarging its presence in those countries from which the migrants escape.

Nowadays due to a terrible emergency sweping through the middle East and the African countries we are surrounded by refugees and we must all do what is in our power to help. It is important to always remember one thing when interacting with human beings, “the face of the other speaks to me and thereby invites me to a relation…” As stated by the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas the relationships we undertake with other people is what truly gives us energy and strength. Without the existence of the other we are not only alone but worth much less. Our goal, our daily mission should be to initiate the best possible relation with the people that surrounds us, and those we meet.

di Ida Cosentino