Europe Slams Its Gates (Part Two)
Are the moral consequences of Europe’s increasingly hardline policy on African immigration outweighed by the political imperatives?
On this week’s second episode of The E.R, we dig deeper into Foreign Policy’s special investigation “Europe Slams Its Gates,” a powerful five-part series of reporting and photography on the millions of people who will be streaming from Africa to Europe in the coming decade, and the efforts by governments to stop them. Migrants lucky enough to survive this harrowing journey arrive on a European continent where shifting political tides and weakening economies provide an uncertain future.
The African migration crisis will continue to raise questions about the EU’s future as governments enact both soft- and hard-power policies to mitigate the human tide. With nativist and xenophobic political parties gaining sway across the Continent, recently re-elected German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her French counterpart Emmanuel Macron face a battle to stop the normalization of these ideologies. But both also know that there’s a limit to what voters across Europe can bear when it comes to open immigration. What responsibilities do the stronger EU members actually have toward the southern countries struggling the most with new arrivals? And will Europe’s tough policies threaten the moral foundations of liberal democracy, or save what’s left of it?
FP’s executive editor for the web Ben Pauker is joined by Sasha Polakow-Suransky, FP’s Ty McCormick, and Cameron Abadi to discuss the political pressure the migration crisis has created across Europe.
On this week’s second episode of The E.R, we dig deeper into Foreign Policy’s special investigation “Europe Slams Its Gates,” a powerful five-part series of reporting and photography on the millions of people who will be streaming from Africa to Europe in the coming decade, and the efforts by governments to stop them. Migrants lucky enough to survive this harrowing journey arrive on a European continent where shifting political tides and weakening economies provide an uncertain future.
The African migration crisis will continue to raise questions about the EU’s future as governments enact both soft- and hard-power policies to mitigate the human tide. With nativist and xenophobic political parties gaining sway across the Continent, recently re-elected German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her French counterpart Emmanuel Macron face a battle to stop the normalization of these ideologies. But both also know that there’s a limit to what voters across Europe can bear when it comes to open immigration. What responsibilities do the stronger EU members actually have toward the southern countries struggling the most with new arrivals? And will Europe’s tough policies threaten the moral foundations of liberal democracy, or save what’s left of it?
FP’s executive editor for the web Ben Pauker is joined by Sasha Polakow-Suransky, FP’s Ty McCormick, and Cameron Abadi to discuss the political pressure the migration crisis has created across Europe.
Sasha Polakow-Suransky is the author of The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa and an Open Society Foundations fellow. He was an op-ed editor at the New York Times, a senior editor at Foreign Affairs and holds a doctorate in modern history from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. His writing has appeared in the Guardian, Foreign Policy, Newsweek, New Republic, and the Boston Globe. His new book, Go Back Where You Came From: The Backlash Against Immigration and the Fate of Western Democracy will be released later this month. Follow him on Twitter: @sasha_p_s.
Ty McCormick is FP’s Africa editor. Follow him on Twitter: @TyMcCormick.
Cameron Abadi is deputy editor of ForeignPolicy.com. Follow him on Twitter @CameronAbadi.
Ben Pauker is FP’s executive editor for the web. Follow him on Twitter: @benpauker.
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