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Jorrit Rijpma: No easy solution to the refugee crisis

Europe is still trying to control migration to the continent. In doing so, it has to navigate between humanitarian ideals and public support.

Jorrit Rijpma

Partly as a result of deals with the Libyan coastguard and the Turkish president Erdogan, Europe has been able to reduce the flow of migrants. But even now, five years on from the refugee crisis of 2015, European policy on migration is still weak. 'When Erdogan declared this spring: I’ve had it with the deal and I’m going to open the border, within three, four days we had a refugee crisis', Jorrit Rijpma, Professor of European Law, says in Dutch newspaper the Volkskrant

But according to the professor, back in 2015 the refugee crisis concerned relatively few people. 'There was no refugee crisis in Europe.  The real refugee crisis was taking place in countries like Lebanon, where almost a quarter of the entire population are refugees.'

There is no easy solution to the crisis, Rijpma says. Improving opportunities for working legally, as put forward by some experts? 'It could perhaps alleviate the refugee system somewhat, but there are more people who want to come to Europe than the labour market can absorb.'

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