Saying Europe is not enough. The EU starts with the States

The public opinion and European politicians alike are slowly acknowledging the historical bearing of the tide of refugees pouring from war zones in Africa and the Middle East. This awareness is coupled by the shattered illusion that it would be a temporary phenomenon. The crisis triggered by refugees inflows, involving increasingly larger areas of the EU – from the Mediterranean to the Balkans, from the east to the centre-north of the continent – and its Member Countries, is much more tragic and with deeper consequences on the economy and on societies than the public debt crisis at the centre of governments’ worries for the past years: we’re talking of people, not just money and currency. The awareness, and thus the reactions, vary from one Country to the next, ranging from an almost unlimited availability to welcome the refugees and grant them the opportunity of a new life, to an almost complete refusal of involvement. But all Countries urge Europe to handle the problems linked to the inflow of refugees. These appeals are reiterated with varying emphases and intentions. Also the representatives of political movements arguing against the unification process, engaged in preventing Europe from developing tools and resources to face its commitments, are now underlining Europe’s responsibilities. Their appeals to Europe represent an easy way to deny their own responsibilities. But who and what is Europe, whose duties and responsibilities are being claimed with such emphasis? Naturally, it’s the European Union that consists of Member States whose contribution is critical to its existence, which does not have duties and responsibilities of its own. In other words: Europe starts with its Member States. If they refuse to do what they could, any appeal to Europe is in vain. Europe’s powers increase only with the joint effort of each involved party. This involves the contribution of governments and public administrations as wells as of religious and charitable bodies, organizations of civil society, unions and citizens’ movements. Compared to the humanitarian disasters taking place before everyone’s eyes (just think of the Syrian toddler’s corpse found on the Turkish shores of Bodrum, or the dangerous crossing of the “wall” between Hungary and Serbia by those fleeing from hunger and wars), the major challenges that the Member States are called to face and the efforts being made to tackle those challenges, Europe inevitably means granting European institutions the tools they need to respond in collaboration with the various forces of its Member States. It will be necessary to step up pressure on those governments and national parliaments that so far – for selfish and nationalistic reasons – have rejected consensual and inclusive solutions. It consists first of all in the willingness to share responsibility: it is unacceptable that only a small minority of 28EU countries have shown their availability. It is unacceptable that a single Country gives hospitality to over 40% of refugees seeking shelter in the EU. And it is unconceivable that precisely Central and Eastern Countries, which after the liberation from Soviet tyranny received the solidarity of the European Union, oppose ad agreement on the redistribution of migrant quotas. Alongside all of this, the entire Union and its member Countries need to acknowledge the situation and transfer further sovereign powers to the EU, so as to ensure the adoption of common policies in the area of asylum and refugees. Such awareness obviously clashes against the illusion that Member countries can protect themselves from the entrance of refugees by rejecting them and erect walls, fences instead or by adopting military provisions. All attempts of this kind are doomed to failure: in Hungary, Macedonia, England and elsewhere. This is linked to the fundamental iniquity of the European situation whereby despite the evidence the political élite is still unable to recognize that nation-states’ sovereignty has been superseded by historical developments over the past decades. Until policy leaders are anchored to the fiction of national sovereignty they will remain restless spectators of history, instead of acting as forerunners of actions granting the European Union the true sovereignty it needs to act for the common good.