The tragedy of Europe: Location, location, location
For years, skeptics warned of multiple threats to the European project. The strains of the single currency, they said, would rip it apart. Excessive regulation was another concern, along with lack of democratic accountability. Some felt Europe’s different peoples were just too different.
The reality, of course, has turned out to be much less complex. As real estate brokers say, it’s all about location. Europe is, quite simply, in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the consequences may rip it apart.
If the escalating migration crisis of the last year has shown anything, it is that geography really, really matters. The Middle East — or more accurately, a handful of countries within it — is on fire. Many people who live there quite reasonably want to leave. And mainland Europe is the closest, richest and safest place for them to go.
At the same time, tens of thousands are also leaving often much more stable countries in Africa, heading north in the hope of better opportunity.
Some countries — particularly the United States, Australia and Canada, and to a lesser extent Britain — have the advantage of distance. Getting there is hard. America and Australia sit behind vast oceans that allow them to pick and choose who can legally cross their borders. Potential migrants can be made to wait 40 years if necessary, while their paperwork is processed. Even the English Channel — a mere 26 miles wide — is remarkably difficult to swim, as more than a few migrants have discovered. And small boats to help the journey — and the necessarily corrupt crews to man them — are much less available than in the Mediterranean.
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2016/01/25/the-tragedy-of-europe-location-location-location/
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