Migrants’ new challenges for the EU

Abstract

Bearing in mind the negative aspects of climatic changes, the increase of the number of natural and technological catastrophes worldwide as well as the wars in Africa and in the Near East, a large number of migrants have appeared; they struggle to get to wealthy West European countries searching for safety and better life. In addition to the economic migrants, as well as the refugees from war-devastated territories, there appears to be a new form of refugees: environmental refugees. Considering the studies of many international organizations as well as scientific circles related to climatic changes, which suggest that the negative effects of climatic changes will be even more pronounced in the future, the problem of environmental refugees becomes even more significant. Current migrant crisis shows all weaknesses of the Dublin system, as well as the weaknesses of the entire system of migration management in the European Union in general. Moreover, European solidarity that has been emphasized on countless occasions before has almost completely failed in case of the current migrant crisis, showing all its shortcomings. The lack of desire to face the problems of migrants ―storming‖ the Union borders more seriously has deeply disturbed long built neighbourliness among the member-countries. As the consequence of that the fences are being raised on both external borders and on the borders between the Union Member States, which has seriously brought the Schengen system into question. In this paper the authors have attempted to suggest in which way the migrant crisis might be solved. The paper, therefore, suggests to the serious problem related to the precise defining of the concept of environmental refugees at the international level, the growth of their number, as well as the negative consequences that will lead to the increase of their number in the EU. It has also been suggested to the weaknesses of the existing regulations on migration management in the Union and the need to change the existing legal framework. Statistic and normative methods have been used in the paper, as well as legal-logic methods of induction and deduction.