The inescapable conclusion is there are simply too many migrants fleeing into the EU. Member countries, especially the poorer ones, haven’t the resources, manpower, or money to house and feed them all. And they keep coming. Authorities warn migrants will freeze to death in the winter. Xenophobia is growing. This is not just a humanitarian crisis, it’s become a political crisis too. Countries are closing borders, erecting walls, making it harder for migrants to cross. It’s already ugly. And could get much worse.
The photo shows migrants in Croatia. They are carrying little or nothing and have lost everything. What does a country like Croatia, which is smaller in square miles than West Virginia, do when tens of thousands of outsiders appear, needing food and shelter?
As leaders of eastern European countries turned on each other at a foul-tempered emergency summit in Brussels, they said the Schengen visa-free zone and even the European Union itself could be pulled apart as states threw up borders to halt the influx.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, said a solution was urgently needed or thousands of refugee families facing winter temperature on the hillsides and freezing river-banks of Eastern Europe, would die.
If borders are closed, then countries on the periphery will get the bulk of the migrants, clearly an untenable situation.
The Balkan nations, fearful of becoming “buffer zones” after Germany and Austria reintroduced border controls, have threatened to shut their own doors to arrivals.
Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania issued a joint statement saying they would close their borders if Germany or other countries do the same to stop refugees coming in.
