THE European Union faces an ocean of troubles, from the integrity of its currency to the security of its neighbourhood. Yet none presents as bewildering an array of difficulties as the movement of people. In under 10,000 words the European Commission’s “agenda on migration,” unveiled on May 13th, identifies war, poverty, globalisation, persecution and climate change as forces driving migration from outside the EU. And it touches on challenges like multilateral diplomacy, criminal networks, military intervention and the ageing of European societies. Next to lists like these, fixing Greece or Ukraine looks like a doddle. So large is the conundrum over migrants, especially of boat-people in the Mediterranean, that the EU has done its best to forget about it. Until last month, that is, when it received a grisly reminder that they had not forgotten about Europe: in a few days more than 1,000 would-be migrants drowned off the Libyan coast. An emergency summit was convened amid the often-heard call that such tragedies could not be allowed to happen again. Yet leaders agreed on little beyond a commitment to spend more on border-surveillance missions, and a...
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