Item — HN Reader

> Visegrad countries have refused for years to help with the inflows from the Southern border

People have this incorrect perception that governments are all powerful. The government in Poland did agree to take in refugees, but they lost the election a few months later.

The war on terror politics were amplified by misinformation campaigns. It was impossible for politicians to solve this problem.

> Maybe it's the time for everyone to grow up and accept that we need a new set of agreements on cross-continent

Sure, but how? People cannot even agree who is a refugee. Is it a person from Ukraine in Romania? What about next country? Is it still a refugee or a migrant?

It's extremely complex problem to solve with a lot of moral dilemmas (helping people in Mediterranean Sea means more people will try to cross, which results in more death)

1 comments

> It was impossible for politicians to solve this problem

Where there is a will, there is a way. The current arrangements don't work, as you're going to experience now and as Southern countries have known for 15 years. It's not just Poland, eh - as I said, the Visegrad bloc is collectively responsible for failing to partake in European solidarność (pun intended) when it comes to refugees and migrants. But now the shoe is on the other foot, and I can assure you that the schadenfreude will abound from Berlin to Athens. Maybe it's time to end the tit-for-tat and agree that everyone has to give an inch so that we can all move forward a metre (again pun intended).

> Sure, but how? People cannot even agree who is a refugee.

The separation between refugee and "economic migrant" is an arbitrary division meant to make the subject intractable. There should be no such division. If someone shows up at our door and wants to work to make a better life for themselves, they should be allowed to, and that's it. In exchange, they should agree to be settled where the Union decides they should be, for a certain period of time; the receiving areas should be decided with fair criteria (density, size, economic demand - probably in this order), and the national authorities should implement such decisions or face severe sanctions. Simple, fair, sustainable for everyone - except for people hiding behind technicalities to defend misguided ideals of racial or cultural purity.

> with a lot of moral dilemmas

The moral dilemmas are only in the minds of people who don't want to face the actual problem. There is no moral dilemma in Lampedusa or in Lesbo, only people trying desperately to help their fellow man and getting overwhelmed by the historic tides. You will find out very soon what that means, and rightly so.