On June 24, the Heinrich Böll Foundation together with the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) and the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement hosted a panel discussion examining Europe’s migration crisis featuring Cem Özdemir, co-chairman of the German Green Party.
In recent months, political upheaval and economic deprivation across North Africa and the Middle East have triggered a massive influx of migrants and refugees to Europe. The magnitude of the crisis is staggering. Last year, the European Union received over 625,000 asylum applications, an increase of over 40% from the previous year and the highest total since 1992. Beyond the documented migrants, the number of persons arriving illegally by land and sea crossings has increased by five times since 2010. Most grievously, from January to April of this year some 1,800 migrants died crossing the Mediterranean compared to fewer than 100 over the same period last year. The EU recently adopted a plan to tackle migrant smuggling, but is it the right way to respond to the crisis? Beyond addressing the problems on its shores, what can the EU do to help mitigate the dire conditions in the migrants’ home states that are forcing them to flee?
Introduction and Moderator
Kemal Kirişci
TUSIAD Senior Fellow and Turkey Project Director
The Brookings Institution
Featured Speaker
Cem Özdemir
Co-Chairman
Alliance '90/The Greens
Discussants
Susan Martin
Donald G. Herzberg Professor of International Migration
Georgetown University
Kathleen Newland
Director of Migrants, Migration, and Development Program
Migration Policy Institute