Europe
Refugee Crisis: EU Faces 'Populist Uprising': Former
MI6 Head
By BBC
May 18, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- "BBC"
- Europe
faces a "populist uprising" if it is unable to show
people it can control the migrant crisis, former MI6
head Sir Richard Dearlove has said.
He was speaking on the BBC's World on the Move
day on migration issues.
Sir Richard also warned against offering
visa-free travel to Turkish nationals, describing
the move as like storing gasoline near a fire.
Earlier, UN special envoy Angelina Jolie Pitt
warned the humanitarian system for refugees was
breaking down.
She spoke of a "fear of migration" and a "race to
the bottom" as countries competed to be the toughest
to protect themselves
BBC News World On The Move is a
day of coverage dedicated to migration, and the
effect it is having on our world.
A range of speakers, including the UNHCR's
special envoy Angelina Jolie Pitt,
and former British secret intelligence chief
Sir Richard Dearlove, have been setting out
the most important new ideas shaping our thinking on
economic development, security and humanitarian
assistance.
Sir Richard said the numbers of immigrants coming
into Europe over the next five years could run into
millions.
The crisis could reshape the continent's
geopolitical landscape, he said.
"If Europe cannot act together to persuade a
significant majority of its citizens that it can
gain control of its migratory crisis then the EU
will find itself at the mercy of a populist
uprising, which is already stirring," he added.
He described the UK referendum on leaving the EU
as "the first roll of the dice in a bigger
geopolitical game".
Sir Richard warned against a deal with Turkey to
allow visa-free travel to the EU to its citizens in
exchange for controlling migration to the EU.
He said it was "perverse, like storing gasoline
next to the fire we're trying to extinguish".
Talks between the Turkey and the EU over the deal
have currently stalled over the former's refusal to
amend its anti-terror laws.
The former head of MI6, which gathers
intelligence abroad for the UK government, said
€1.8bn (£1.4bn) allocated by the EU to address the
root causes of migration in Africa made "much more
sense" than a deal with Turkey but was not nearly
enough.
The only answer was a "massive response" of this
kind combined with a "much more aggressive operation
along the North African coast", he added.
But Sir
Richard cautioned against shutting the door on
migration altogether.
"In the
real world there are no miraculous James Bond-style
solutions," he said. "Human tides are irresistible
unless the gravitational pull that causes them is
removed."
Speaking
earlier in the day, Ms Jolie Pitt said that more
than 60 million people - one in 122 - were displaced
globally - more than at any time in the past 70
years.
"This tells
us something deeply worrying about the peace and
security of the world," she said, adding: "The
average time a person will be displaced is now
nearly 20 years."
Ms Jolie
Pitt said the "number of conflicts and scale of
displacement had grown so large" the system to
protect and return refugees was not working.
Save the
Children is calling for greater international
commitment to ensure child refugees remain in
school.
The
charity's new report,
A New Deal for Refugees, says only one in four
refugee children is now enrolled in secondary
school.
It is
calling on governments and aid agencies to adopt a
new policy framework that will ensure no refugee
child remains out of school for more than a month.
It is an
ambitious target but there is growing concern that
this migration crisis is producing a lost generation
of children which means conditions for even greater
insecurity and poverty.
A note on terminology:
The BBC uses the term migrant to refer to all people
on the move who have yet to complete the legal
process of claiming asylum. This group includes
people fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria, who
are likely to be granted refugee status, as well as
people who are seeking jobs and better lives, who
governments are likely to rule are economic
migrants.
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