It's Monday during Almedalen Week 2018 and I end up under rain and gray clouds when I visit the Swedish Migration Agency's stand to listen to a seminar on last week's EU summit for the Council of Ministers. The Swedish Migration Agency has presented orange blankets for us in the audience to warm us up with, but unfortunately the seminar itself was a cold shower for me who had long hoped for a solidarity solution.
New and more immigration-critical leaders had taken their seats during the EU summit, which began on 28 June, and after lengthy negotiations in which Italy, among others, blocked decisions, EU leaders have agreed to investigate the creation of so-called "disembarkation platforms" or "hot spots". ”. These sites will bring together migrants, both inside and outside the EU's borders, to then divide people into a category that needs protection and one that does not. The idea is in place that you should immediately get those who are not considered to need protection, to go back to their countries in the same boats that they arrived with. Few countries have been shown to be willing to house these reception centers and as right-wing populism has spread, it will be more difficult to get anything done.
In the global context, there have never been so many refugees, more than after the Second World War. When most migrants reached the EU in 2015, there were 1,5 million people, who could have been distributed in 28 countries. Uganda currently has 3 million refugees, but the EU - a rich and well-educated region in the world - prefers to outsource its conscience. There is currently a lack of leadership with visions and a will to do something good.
How should the group with protection needs be taken care of then? There is still no proposal for that. I can not draw any other conclusion than that a compelling redistribution will not happen. The proposal seems dead and it was probably already clear several weeks before the summit. How can the EU legislate for everything from food and medicine to water and the environment, but not to living people living in enormous vulnerability? What we are looking at is not a migration crisis, but a political crisis where migration is not just a technical issue, but an issue on which one can win or lose elections.