Monica Goracci is the director of the german section of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Berlin. She says: “Arrivals are drastically lower across the Mediterranean, yet the sense of panic and crisis is at an all-time high. Now is the time to go beyond a crisis footing and forge a longer-term, balanced, common and humane policy with migrants recognized as people, not numbers.”

 

Raghida Bahnam is a freelance journalist from Lebanon. She says: “The crisis Europe is facing now is partly a result of its refusal to act early on what was happening in Syria during the early days of the revolution.”

 

Thorsten Benner is Co-founder and director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin. He says: “The migration issue has long stopped being mainly about refugees – it is now a tool in a the fight for political power and identity in Europe, a fight that has the potential to lead to an implosion of the European Union”.