The Current Column

A five-point plan for dealing with the refugee crisis: there are no small solutions to big problems

Messner, Dirk
External Publications (2015)

published on Katoikos.eu Tuesday, 20 October 2015

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Europe and Germany cannot be an island of contentment, because cross-border crises do not simply disappear by building walls, looking away and failing to act. This is the lesson to be learned from 2015: crises on the financial markets and in Greece, Ebola, Charlie Hebdo and Islamic terror at the heart of Europe, global data espionage penetrating as far as the German Federal Chancellery, the suffering and misery of the refugees. Cross-border crises call for a consistently higher level of international and global co-operation. This is something we need to adapt to: with solution strategies, investments, personnel, innovations in ministries. 2015 is not a year of exceptional crisis, to be followed by calmer circumstances. Comprehensive globalisation means that we need to learn to come to terms with its boomerang effects if prosperity, democracy and security are to have a future.
The refugee crisis requires an all-embracing approach, a five-point plan. Initiatives need to be put into place promptly in five areas in order to slow down escalation, save human lives and our European concept of humanism and ensure security in Europe and in our neighbourhoods. None of the initiatives required is simple, all of them require perseverance, significant application of resources and bold political reforms.