The EU’s migration delusion

Just as Theresa May’s Chequers plan for Brexit was being savaged in Salzburg, EU leaders also found time to engage in their usual response when it comes to the question of migration: a lot of talk, glad-handing, and pats on the back, but very little concrete action. The summit was a two-day affair that encapsulates all of the negative connotations of the EU as an institution: slow, cumbersome, ineffective, and increasingly detached from reality.

Hours were devoted to the migration issue, that perennial crisis that has hovered over Brussels over the last five years. Based on the public statements before, during, and after the informal summit, you would be excused for thinking European leaders made a breakthrough and had finally solved a problem that has divided the bloc into a shaky and fragile house of cards. “We have achieved a lot by managing the migration crisis,” according to Estonian prime minister Jüri Ratas, “The numbers have come down a lot”.