Europe needs to look at 'bigger picture' for migration

[unhappycamper]

http://www.dw.com/en/europe-needs-to-look-at-bigger-picture-for-migration/a-18639441

Thousands of migrants have died trying to reach European shores, and the EU is struggling to cope. As Martin Kuebler reports, some critics believe the answer lies in opening the borders, rather than further restrictions.

Europe needs to look at 'bigger picture' for migration
Martin Kuebler
10.08.2015

More than 1,000 migrants were rescued by European patrol boats over the weekend, as they attempted the treacherous crossing across the Mediterranean to Europe.

They were just the latest to make the trip, joining around 224,000 other people who have escaped war and famine since January, according to an estimate by UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. Among those are around 98,000 who arrived in Italy and 124,000 in Greece, up nearly 150 percent on last year's numbers.

More than 2,100 migrants have died so far this year in their attempts to cross the water, the latest in a shipwreck last week off the coast of Libya in which 200 are thought to have drowned. Last Thursday, in reaction to the latest tragedy, EU liberal leader Guy Verhofstadt published an open letter to European Council President Donald Tusk to address the "increasingly untenable" situation on the EU's borders.

Verhofstadt said EU leaders needed to come together for an "urgent" summit to develop a "comprehensive European approach" to "solve what is a growing humanitarian crisis."