Europe’s refugee crisis: Closing EU borders will not work

JUST as our friends and neighbours in the North can only look on in despair — or even indifference — as Stormont politicians of all hues talk themselves into another frenzy of no-surrender obstructionism, the citizens of Europe, most of whom want a humane response to the growing refugee crisis, can only look on in frustration fast turning to shame as national ministers struggle to agree on how each EU member state might contribute proportionately to a community-wide response.

In the North the remnants of paramilitary terrorist organisations murder each other but on the fringes of Europe, and at its heart too, refugees are living in conditions that are unacceptable, inhumane and a fertile breeding ground for the kind of hatred that populates terrorist organisations like Isis or, if we are to believe what we are told, once drove the Provos in their equally anti-democratic terror campaigns.

Just as Northern Secretary Theresa Villiers has suggested that bodies like the Independent Monitoring Commission and the British National Crime Agency might make a contribution towards breaking this latest impasse — it will hardly be the last one, bad habits have been indulged too often — in determining the status of the IRA and other paramilitary groups German chancellor Angela Merkel has asked for an EU summit next week on refugees. Both women, for the want of a better phrase, want to bang heads together so that we can reach an inevitable conclusion without wasting too much more time pretending that there are a range of options available to resolve each situation.