Europe’s Physical and Mental Walls Against Refugees

Europe’s Physical and Mental Walls Against Refugees

Posted by: Judy Dempsey Thursday, October 29, 2015  | 

First it was Hungary. Now Slovenia and Austria are thinking about doing the same: building fences to control the flow of refugees entering their countries. But if some EU states believe that putting up walls will make Europe’s refugee problem disappear, or that they can shut themselves off from the crisis, they are making a big mistake.
Erecting walls will put even more pressure on the Western Balkan countries that are already struggling with tens of thousands of refugees trekking across this part of Europe. And it will lead to a fortress Europe—precisely what the Eastern members of the EU didn’t want the union to become vis-à-vis their own Eastern neighbors once they joined the EU in 2004. The new member states didn’t want their neighbors isolated from Europe.http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=61802&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonvKXNZKXonjHpfsX57uQsW6Sg38431UFwdcjKPmjr1YIGRcR0aPyQAgobGp5I5FEIQ7XYTLB2t60MWA%3D%3D