December 18th, 2015

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On Boxing Day some 11 years ago, a tsunami struck Asia and killed 300,000 people. It was another lesson that expecting the unexpected is a way of dealing with it.

In the meantime, 300,000 people have been killed in the Syrian Civil War, which has now driven millions to the roads to avoid the bombs and IS, often leaving homes that have been destroyed. Nobody saw that coming.

Europe’s tsunami
Denmark has realised that events in Syria will also have an impact on life here. An unprecedented number of refugees and migrants are coming our way. The Schengen borders of fortress Europe simply can’t prevent desperate people trying to get out of harm’s way.

European governments are panicking and trying to limit the tsunami of refugees flooding their land. Long-gone border controls are being re-established where only recently goods, services and people were moving freely. Only when they are gone will we appreciate the freedom they gave us.

In need of new order
The old treaties pertaining to the handling of refugees are about to be renegotiated as they were struck during different times – when the present problem was beyond imagination and the inflow to Europe came to less than 100,000 per year. Back then, the first country of asylum would had the task of dealing with it.

There is of course a limit to how elegantly you can handle the free movement of people – especially if they are without shelter and food and need to be housed, integrated and assimilated over time. Most of them will outstay their visiting time because it is nice in Europe compared to their homelands.

Time to stand up!
If we ever needed the EU, it is now. Without a central command to handle the problem, we face a sad line of sub-optimisation and the probable infringement of a lot of people’s human rights. If we do not have principles of humanitarian oversight to guide us, it will be a chase to the bottom, and who knows what the political picture will look like there.

The new Star Wars trilogy will show that the good Jedis win in the end. Let us hope that the Christmas spirit will settle on the responsible politicians and give them the courage to find solutions on common ground. The Danes are not scared of the migrants and refugees. They have a heart, most of them. But the politicians will have to learn that tsunamis mean mega problems, and that means that the problem will not go away by itself, but will have to be dealt with by the EU – that it why we have it.

In the meantime, may I wish you all from our team here at the Weekly Post a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We’ll be back at the end of the first week of January. Stay in touch via cphpost.dk and our social media platforms.