Forget Brexit or a looming trans-Atlantic trade war. The diplomatic spat this week among Italy, Malta and France over who should take responsibility for some 630 people rescued at sea shows that the biggest challenge Europe faces today is migration.
It’s not about the hundreds of thousands of people who arrived across the Mediterranean in recent years — many in perilous sea crossings like those aboard the rescue ship Aquarius — seeking better or safer lives. Turkey has welcomed more. Tiny Lebanon and struggling Jordan handle almost two million refugees between them.
The crisis threatening the very existence of the European Union is the enemy within: the inability of the 28 states that make up the world’s biggest trading bloc to manage those migrant arrivals collectively.
Asylum reform is stranded on the rocks of national interests. The questions of who should take responsibility for those arriving — and whether there should be a quota system for European countries to share refugees — are fiercely disputed.
Long-suffering EU nations like Italy and Greece, where most sea migrants enter, feel abandoned by other EU nations.
In response, some European countries have deployed troops, erected border fences or temporarily reintroduced ID checks, undermining Europe’s wide-ranging passport-free travel area. Others have welcomed the migrants in.
Those acting alone have mostly angered their neighbors by passing the problem on. Mutual trust between nations in the bloc has evaporated.
Anti-migrant parties have exploited the chaos, winning votes as they foment fear of…
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