Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT

Europe has a problem with immigrants. More than half a million people asked for asylum in Europe last year, twice as many as three years ago. Many more desire to reach Europe, which in their eyes is a safe zone, a shelter against war, death, terror and torture. Europe is surrounded by countries and regions in crisis - and in comparison with theirs, Europe's own financial crisis is pure luxury.

The Arab world is on fire. Libya, Syria, and Iraq are failing states now, and packed with potential emigrants looking with hope and desire beyond the Mediterranean, or the Turkish borderline. Many states in Africa are destabilized by poverty, disastrous regimes, and religious extremism, such as Somalia, Mali and a whole range of other sub-Saharan states. Closer to Europe itself, conflict is still not fully extinguished in the Balkan region, where former Yugoslav republics hate each other because of ethnic cleavages.

And, last but not least, Ukraine entered the range of states in distress. Refugees come from farther away, too, such as Afghanistan. The gap between peace and prosperity within the EU (despite the financial crisis since 2008) on the one hand and the hopeless horrors in the neighboring regions on the other is reason enough for the fast increase of immigrants.

But Europe has an internal problem with immigrants and refugees, too. Europe is aging, and needs to face all the ensuing problems for its sophisticated and ambitious welfare systems: A declining number of working people will have to cover an increasing number of elderly people in the next generation. Immigrants could make up for the demographic gap under these conditions, and should therefore be welcome - provided they are educated, get jobs, pay taxes and social security contributions.

Europe is a continent of nation states, and national homogeneity is stronger than at any time since the aftermath of WWII, when tens of millions of Europeans were refugees themselves, joining their compatriots in their "home" countries.

One of the consequences is that refugees and immigrants are not very welcome in the eyes of ordinary people, who put then a strain on democratically elected elites to downsize the problem.

But asylum and the offer of a safe place to people prosecuted in their home countries remains a basic humanitarian value.

Yet Europe does not live up to this ambition. More than 4,000 refugees died last year when trying to cross the Mediterranean, and most of the EU member states refuse to accept a fair share of immigrants. In fact, 70 percent of the asylum seekers end up in only five (out of the 28) EU member states, with Sweden in the first place (relative to population), followed by Germany, France, Italy, and the UK.

Recently, under the shock of several catastrophic accidents with boat people abused by human traffickers on the Mediterranean, the EU took action (or promised to do so, for the time being): The strategy now ought to focus on obstructing traffickers and interrupting the criminal chain of illegal immigration.

The European Commission launched negotiations among the member states aiming at a quota system obliging all the member states to accept a fair number of refugees.

But these negotiations will prove all the more difficult, since there are euro-skeptic political parties in more than one member state coming close to take over government, on the basis of anti-immigration demagogical positions.

But the real problem still needs to be addressed: What makes those wretched people leave their countries? And shouldn't Europe do anything about improving the living conditions in these countries, so that people do not feel the need to risk their lives for an uncertain and in many cases deadly adventure like emigration?

The "real" solution of the problem would indeed be to make the European neighborhood as safe and prosperous as the EU itself.

And to some extent, the Europeans are indeed historically responsible for what happens in their neighborhood - it was the Europeans who divided the African continent and the Arab world into artificial and sometimes unviable nation states. But that opens a wide range of long-term politics and fundamental questions - should Europe intervene in Arab and African states, in order to improve governance, provide for economic performance, and assure security? After the failure of previous interventions, few back such an approach.

The problem of immigration will therefore increase, and a piecemeal approach will prevail, and improvisation will be the rule when dealing with refugees. And refugees will continue to pay the price, sometimes with their lives.

The author is a professor and director of research and development at the Centre International de Formation Européenne, Nice. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn