Wednesday, May 08, 2013

The only way to reverse the trend in the European Union

The only way to reverse the trend in the European Union is to recapture the spirit of solidarity that animated the European project from the start

To that end, I recently established an Open Society Initiative for Europe (OSIFE). In doing so, I recognized that the best place to start would be where current policies have created the greatest human suffering: Greece. The people who are suffering are not those who abused the system and caused the crisis. The fate of the many migrant and asylum seekers caught in Greece is particularly heart-rending. But their plight cannot be separated from that of the Greeks themselves. An initiative confined to migrants would merely reinforce the growing xenophobia and extremism in Greece.

We could set up solidarity houses in Greece, which would serve as community centers for the local population and also provide food and shelter to migrants. There are already many soup kitchens and civil-society efforts to help the migrants, but these initiatives cannot cope with the scale of the problem. What I have in mind is to reinforce these efforts.

The EU’s asylum policy has broken down. Refugees must register in the member country where they enter, but the Greek government cannot process the cases. Some 60,000 refugees who sought to register have been put into detention facilities where conditions are inhumane. Migrants who do not register and live on the street are attacked by the hooligans of the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party.

Sweden has made migration and asylum policy a high priority, while Norway is concerned about the fate of migrants in Greece. So both countries would be prime candidates to support solidarity houses. And other better-off countries could join them. OSIFE is ready to provide support for this initiative, and I hope other foundations will be eager to do the same. But this has to be a European project – one that eventually must find its way into the European budget.

Currently, Golden Dawn is making political headway by providing social services to Greeks while attacking migrants. The initiative that I propose would offer a positive alternative, based on solidarity – the solidarity of Europeans with Greeks and of Greeks with migrants. It would provide a practical demonstration of the spirit that ought to infuse the entire EU.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
 
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