The European Union is witnessing perhaps the largest scale of immigration wave ever with some 153,000 migrants who have been detected at its external borders since the beginning of this year and arriving at its “gates” in south Italy and as of recently at the Hungary’s border with Serbia. One of the biggest surges happened at the beginning of June when nearly 6000 people were plucked from the sea at the south Italy’s coast, while at the other gate – some 80,000 refugees and migrants have reached Hungary since the beginning of this year.
Facing the global phenomenon of mass migration which, according to recent estimations has become larger in scope and numbers than the one happened after the World War II, the DG Migration and Home Affairs has launched a scope of comprehensive policy measures granting institutional responses and even more calling for adequate responses by the MS mostly affected by the influx of migrants. However, the main challenge in facing the phenomenon still remains unresolved, in other words how to protect the migrants’ lives and the rights of asylum seekers on one hand, and the security of the EU external borders on the other. On their long and exhausting escape from civil war, despair, famine and misery they are using dangerous routes, risking kidnapping, human trafficking, robbery, jail and even death. At the end of the day, only those who have enough money to pay the traffickers, those patient enough to try to cross the border several times or those who are lenient enough to endure lack of any decent living conditions along the way, and in border areas in particular, can consider themselves as “lucky asylum seekers” in the EU.
The European Union is witnessing perhaps the largest scale of immigration wave ever with some 153,000 migrants who have been detected at its external borders since the beginning of this year and arriving at its “gates” in south Italy and as of recently at the Hungary’s border with Serbia. One of the biggest surges happened at the beginning of June when nearly 6000 people were plucked from the sea at the south Italy’s coast, while at the other gate – some 80,000 refugees and migrants have reached Hungary since the beginning of this year.
Facing the global phenomenon of mass migration which, according to recent estimations has become larger in scope and numbers than the one happened after the World War II, the DG Migration and Home Affairs has launched a scope of comprehensive policy measures granting institutional responses and even more calling for adequate responses by the MS mostly affected by the influx of migrants. However, the main challenge in facing the phenomenon still remains unresolved, in other words how to protect the migrants’ lives and the rights of asylum seekers on one hand, and the security of the EU external borders on the other. On their long and exhausting escape from civil war, despair, famine and misery they are using dangerous routes, risking kidnapping, human trafficking, robbery, jail and even death. At the end of the day, only those who have enough money to pay the traffickers, those patient enough to try to cross the border several times or those who are lenient enough to endure lack of any decent living conditions along the way, and in border areas in particular, can consider themselves as “lucky asylum seekers” in the EU.