Assimilating refugees the great challenge

THERE seems an inevitability that each time Europe’s leaders meet to try to cope with the escalating refugee crisis that measures that not so very long ago would have been considered an impossible over-reach are put in place in the hope that further chaos might be averted.

Unfortunately it seems that the terrible hardships faced by tens of thousands of refugees — political or economic — will continue as long as their home countries are torn by war or terrorism and as long as they insist on celebrating a medieval culture that makes them irrelevant, impoverished outliers in the world economy. This changing landscape, one offering fewer and fewer options, is no more than a recognition of the scale of the challenge — if not threat — an unending march of refugees poses to regional stability.

Late on Thursday evening EU leaders pushed very hard to try to win Turkey’s co-operation in trying to control — if not stop — the flow of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees into Europe. Considerable concessions, though not all as yet agreed by Europe’s national leaders, were made including a promise of €3bn if Turkey agreed to accommodate up to 3m Syrian refugees and prevent them reaching Europe. The greatest concessions however were not monetary.