Handling the refugee crisis

Immigration unquestionably poses a huge challenge for the countries of Europe as there seems to be no end to the influx from Asia and Africa – at least not in the near future.

Entire populations are fleeing their home countries in an attempt to escape the devastation of conflict and poverty.

To be sure, the West bears considerable responsibility for what is happening since its governments were the ones to trigger the crisis, at least in some cases.

For this reason, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and government officials are right to stress that the problem is bigger than Greece and that it in fact requires a Europe-wide response.

That said, the Greek administration has done a very poor job of handling the influx of people. Officials were taken aback by the size of the flow and they were very slow in setting up and organizing the requisite infrastructure.