In a week when Russia threatened to annex more territory in Ukraine, gas shortages loomed, and inflation and Covid surged across Europe, it seems almost unkind to remind EU and UK leaders of another crisis that is unfolding, largely unremarked, right under their noses. As Claudius laments in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, / But in battalions.”
As if defeating Russian aggression was not enough of a challenge, Europe now also faces rapidly rising new “waves” of undocumented asylum seekers. Given the sociopolitical upheavals that ensued after 1 million refugees, mostly Syrians, arrived on Europe’s shores in 2015, the EU and UK might be expected to be better prepared this time.
