The EU’s migration solution? Throw cash at the problem

When European leaders met earlier this month to thrash out an agreement on  migration, they succeeded in rescuing German Chancellor Angela Merkel from the precipice. But it is already becoming clear that the deal they struck was more a temporary papering over of ideological differences on migration than a permanent solution. While the EU agreed on the possible establishment of migrant transit centres on European soil, disembarkation platforms in north Africa, and a general statement that illegal migration was a European problem, the detail of how all this would work in practice was ignored. Not a single European country volunteered to host a reception centre, and attempts to persuade governments in north Africa to sign up to the plan and cooperate on a disembarkation scheme have gone nowhere. Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Algeria and Egypt have all declined to set up the temporary holding sites the EU is calling for. Human rights groups aren’t especially supportive of the idea