5 Long-Term Solutions To Europe's Refugee Crisis

As EU ministers meet in reaction to the disaster in the Mediterranean earlier, their focus will be on immediate responses. For example, it is likely that they will agree to strengthen patrols in the Mediterranean and support the capacity of countries in North Africa to control irregular migration flows. This is only appropriate.

Over 30,000 asylum seekers are estimated to have arrived in Europe this year already, and over 1,000 have already lost their lives.  But for these and other short-term measures to have lasting impact, they need to be part of a wider approach that also pays attention to the underlying drivers for growing irregular migration towards Europe.

Immigration Drives a Deeper Wedge Between EU States

The European Union is once again struggling to come up with a coherent asylum strategy for its 28 members. In recent years, the rising number of asylum seekers entering the European Union through countries such as Italy and Greece has generated friction among member states, fueled criticism of the Schengen Agreement and contributed to the growing popularity of nationalist parties.

However, the European Union will not reform its asylum policies in any significant way. Member states will provide more financial assistance to Mediterranean countries, but they will refuse to accept quotas of immigrants over the coming months and years. Anti-immigration sentiments will persist across the Continent, putting substantial pressure on one of the European Union's founding principles: the free movement of people.

An Earthquake Exposes Nepal’s Political Rot

Nepal is in the headlines this week — for all the wrong reasons. It’s not just the April 25 magnitude 7.8 earthquake, with an epicenter located 80 miles northwest of the overcrowded urban sprawl that is Kathmandu, that devastated the country and left more than 5,500 dead. It’s also the shambolic response of the country’s leaders.

Do the UK's European ties damage its prosperity?

Eurosceptics claim that EU membership has become a major drag on British prosperity. If the country left the EU, they argue, it would be freed of irksome continental influences like regulations and protectionism – and would thus become freer, more prosperous and truer to its globalising nature. In this CER essay, 'Do the UK’s European ties damage its prosperity?', Philip Whyte demonstrates that these claims are profoundly misleading.