Migration: opportunity or threat?
Humanitarian, legal and political crises accompany the refugee crisis in the European Union. It could take a while for Member States to coordinate these three factors - stated Csaba Sógor during a lecture held in Csíkszereda/Miercurea Ciuc on March 30th organised by the Consulate General of Hungary in Romania and Németh Géza Association.
“About three percent of the world’s population has always been migrating, this is an alarming phenomenon today because the world’s population has increased and today approximately 262 million people are migrating from one part of the world to another – explained Csaba Sógor. The RMDSZ MEP added that climate change will be among the causes of global migration within the next 30 years.
In connection with the current refugee crisis Csaba Sógor stated that five years of war in Syria has rendered 12 million of the country's 20 million people homeless. 8 million of these people are seeking refuge within the country’s borders, and 4 million are trying to find a home somewhere else. About 2 Million have fled to Turkey and Lebanon and 1 million of them have come to Europe in the past years.
"Europe was not prepared for this, and as a result we are now facing humanitarian, legal and political crises – said the MEP. He explained: there is a humanitarian crisis, because we have to provide for thousands of people in need at once, there is a legal crisis because, as it turned out, European legislation is outdated or some Member States fail to comply with them. We are facing a political crisis because some larger Member States found it hard to accept that smaller countries could also be right and did not want to admit that Europe cannot accommodate all refugees. It was easier to criticize the Eastern European countries. Now we can all see that the heads of the 28 Member States lack cohesion, solidarity in the implementation of immigration related decisions.
Sógor stated: ”The refugee crisis is the EU’s biggest challenge yet, but it also presents an opportunity. The phenomenon showed us that we need to rethink what European values are, what it means to be European, how our Jewish-Christian heritage influenced our culture, and so on. Europe must decide what kind of a future it wants for its citizens. Europe still has the opportunity to find it’s way forward. We must stay level headed during this process and while we must never lose sight of our short and long term goals, being human and empathetic is a must”- stated the MEP.
