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European Union's refugee policy is inadequate

Europe has a serious and difficult situation to face in the form of displaced people assembling on its borders.

The issue of migrants in Europe and the Middle East is far from being addressed. Several summits and bilateral meetings between Turkey and other stakeholders across the Mediterranean have failed to tackle the human exodus in its original sense. The result is chaos and anarchy with millions languishing on the frontiers of many European states and in Turkey. Pope Francis's visit to a detention camp on the Greek island of Lesbos was an attempt to highlight the humanitarian plight of the people, and a call for ways and means to solve the conflict in all humility. The pope termed the inflow of dispossessed people into Europe, in the wake of upheavals in the Middle East, as the "worst humanitarian disaster since the Second World War". As a mark of solidarity, the pope sought to take away with him 10 migrants to Vatican, underscoring the need for settling these homeless people in safe zones worldwide. More than a million refugees are inside Europe, either battling for a legal status or stranded in detention camps awaiting a decision from the authorities concerned on their fate. Coupled with this is the issue of essential supplies, food and other accessories for the migrants, which the host countries have not been able to provide in an adequate manner. Last but not least is the issue of social friction that has come into being between the migrants and people of those respective countries, stirring feelings of hate, otherness and restlessness.
Europe has a serious and difficult situation to face in the form of displaced people assembling on its borders. The EU-Turkey agreement on migrants is a non-starter to say the least. It has complicated the problem, rather than solving it. It says all irregular migrants crossing from Turkey into Greece will be sent back. Similarly, the controversial accord says that for each Syrian returned to Turkey, a Syrian migrant will be resettled in the EU. The point is that who is keeping a tab on the exodus, and what mechanism is there to judge the veracity of such claims? Which is why the diaspora poses political and socio-cultural challenges for the entire European Union. The way-out is to streamline the refugees on a humane basis and make efforts to resettle them back in their respective countries. The refugees are there because they have a disorder at home. If that is addressed in an amicable manner, the problem can be tackled right at the doorstep of embarkation points.