THE CHANGING NATURE AND EUROPEAN PERCEPTIONS OF EUROPE REFUGEE PROBLEM

Many in Western Europe regard it as being in the grip of a refugee cri sis. This paper considers this contention. It describes the main stage s in the development of the current refugee crisis and argues that hav ing established the agenda in the 1940s, Western Europe has been able to progressively distance itself from refugee episodes and define them as essentially problems of the Third World. The end of the Cold War a nd the growth in numbers of spontaneous, rather than quota, refugees h ave been considerable shocks to the West, which can no longer contain and distance itself from refugee flows. Shock has led Europe to overre act and become myopic in its view of refugee matters. In reality, figu res demonstrate that Western Europe is not the centre of refugee gener ation, applications or resettlement. Despite this, governments have ta ken draconian unilateral and multilateral action to exclude not only T hird World asylum seekers but also those from the East.