This brief examines the causes of the current European refugee crisis, debunks some of the common misconceptions that surround it, and underlines the weaknesses inherent in the EU’s policies and decision-making system. In particular, the text’s author 1) highlights the EU’s failure to foresee and prevent the crisis, which had its roots in the misconceived policy of outsourcing border and migration controls, and 2) analyzes the current resilience of EU and German leadership.
