Can giving migrants a place of their own solve the crisis?
THE EU has suffered three systemic shocks in the past five years. The most existential of these is the euro crisis and the most insidious is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But the most visible and heart-rending — not to mention most challenging to the EU’s assumption of its own virtue — is the recent flood of migrants from the south and east, fleeing poverty, suppression, and war.
Both the euro crisis and the Russian encroachment in Ukraine threaten to undermine the EU’s development into a cohesive unit. The euro was meant to pave the way to common politics, a giant step towards a European sState, which turned out to be a step far too large. The Russian challenge was a response to what President Vladimir Putin insists is an imperial project to surround and squeeze Russia. In response, he seized the southern Ukrainian province of Crimea and gave strong support to pro-Russian rebels over the Russian-Ukrainian border in Donbas, sparking a low-level war. A truce is currently breaking down.
