Beyond withdrawal and asylum – an urgent call for European Cosmopolitism

Europe’s conservatism and nationalist fallback has ended up in begetting its opposite. Will the Syrian refugees exodus result in the policy shift that is necessary lest Europe becomes against its own will the last resort of persecuted populations ? Now, billions of euros are going to be spent in emergency relief, belatedly vindicating those who denounced for a long time our policies excessive insistence on strengthening immigration controls at the Schengen borders. It had become unavoidable that a discourse emphasizing at the same time the democratization of the regions adjacent to the European Union and our inability to influence on the Syrian situation, this together with our de facto blockading threatened populations into an endless Lybian or Turkish exile, would explode on account of its own contradictions. There has been no dearth of " co-development " rhetoric but generally speaking Europe does not do enough, by far, to support independent initiatives in its neighborhood or to facilitate transborder projects set up by european residents coming " from other parts of the world ". There is nothing outrageous in stating that Europe no longer has borders : it never had anyway. Its expansion blanketed the world in such a way that globalization directly impinges on the relationship between Europe and all the people in its neighborhood – and this not solely in terms of free trade associations or agreements regarding the defense of its official, external borders. In our conversations with Niels Planel, who recently published extensively about his time with international organizations, most notably with the World Bank, we reckon that macro-economic measures are not enough. They must go together with support for out-of-the-box initiatives by entities which take risks and make a stand – granting scholarships, making micro-credits available, and generally providing incentives at the local level. All this in the realm of the urban, where now a majority of the people reside. These days students are massively on the move. Expertise now follows production in the outsourcing and delocalisation game, and shift to wherever labor power is abundant and an effective demand exist. Diaspora communities spearhead development at home and their members function as intercultural mediators engaging on daily basis in the interchange between cultures and ways of life. For sure, there is a need to make a distinction between voluntary mobility and forced exile, but mobility itself is simply an irreversible feature of our times, and we should actively fostering it lest we make ourselves unable to anticipate collective developments and face, every time again, the tragedies of emergency situations. The striking connection between the rise of religious fundamentalisms and the growing self-closure of the societies harboring them has its counterpart the distrust of foreigners actually growing with the spread of national identity ideologies. As if Europe, which historically has been built on intermingling of populations of diverse origins would suddenly be threatened by a potential extra one percent of people originating from its margins. How did we reach a situation where French CEO’s and the German economy minister have to come to the fore to explain that Europe’s demographic deficit poses a far graver risk to our societies than accepting immigrants ? The time-line running from the Tunisian revolution to the current wave of Syrian refugees compels Europe to redefine its policies and put them in accordance with its man-faceted calling – which overlaps with, but also largely exceeds, its economic game plan. Failing to which Europe will become ossified and senile, falling prey to repugnant xenophobic creeds. The Great European Illusion was to believe that a single mode of operation would be applicable to the …