A Crisis for the Ages: The European Union and the migration Crisis. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 15 Special, October 2015

Five months ago most European citizens were unaware of the number of refugees seeking to reach the richest EU Member States like Germany, France, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The first wake up call for Europe was after the Lampedusa tragedy costing the lives of more than 300 refugees on October 3rd, 2013.1 Europeans were shocked, as the world was, to wake up to hear about such tragedy taking place at their doorstep. From 2013 to 2015, the issue of mass-migration from Syria, Eritrea, Somalia and other countries in the region left the front pages of newspapers and the minds of Europeans, but had remained extremely present in the world of experts and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) was calling for actions. The second wake-up call, which marked the beginning of the seriousness of the crisis, was the shipwreck where an estimated 900 migrants died on April 19th, 2015 off the coast of Italy.