Al-Etihad, UAE, July 7
Now that the European summit of heads of state has been concluded, we can look back at the meetings held in Brussels in an attempt to understand what was decided there. Unfortunately, the language employed in the various statements that were published in the summit’s aftermath is very confusing. It seems as if Europe’s leaders, knowing that their differences far outweigh their areas of agreement, chose to stick to ambiguous jargon in their press releases. Some leaders, for example, claimed that a decision was made to financially assist countries that receive a large number of refugees. Other leaders, meanwhile, insisted that no financial benefits would be given to host countries and, instead, refugees would be resettled in other parts of Europe. All of these conflicting messages join an already long list of disagreements among European leaders over how to best deal with the refugee situation that emerged in the continent in the past few years. However, what is most interesting to note is that data from the European Commission actually suggests that the refugee crisis has been winding down, with fewer than 60,000 asylum seekers arriving in Europe this year, compared to over a million individuals at the peak of the crisis. In other words, the current situation is almost a non-issue in relative terms. Yet the rise of nationalistic governments in countries like Italy, Hungary, Austria, and Poland has turned the migrant crisis into one of the most politicized topics in Europe. European leaders use the migrant issue as an intra-European bashing tool to garner support and popularity at home. Within this wave of populist politics, ranging all the way from Moscow to Washington, the EU is facing an ever-growing risk of disintegrating. Years of European unity and an attempt to bring the continent towards an ever-closer union are quickly unraveling, leaving more questions than answers about what’s in store next for European states and their relations with one another. –Hazem Saghiya