The phrase “Nie wieder-Never again-Bir daha asla!” emerged as a rallying cry to ensure that the atrocities of the Adolf Hitler era would never be repeated. Exactly 70 years later, the slogan was updated as “Nie wieder 2015 / Never Again 2015.” This was because, between 2014 and 2016, within a period of three years, 1.3 million migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries travelled through Türkiye to the Greek islands and then onward to Central Europe. This crisis, which Europeans described as the “migrant/refugee crisis,” also undermined the principle of responsibility/burden-sharing among European Union (EU) member states, one of the most important pillars of the Dublin Agreements. Each EU member state sought to push migrants moving along the Balkan route onto another. With then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s opening expressed in the phrase “Wir schaffen das!” / “We can manage this!”, the reality of the situation was partly acknowledged. Germany alone admitted approximately 1 million of the 1.3 million migrants into the country. While Sweden accepted 130,000 people, even major countries such as France and the United Kingdom admitted only minimal numbers. During these three years, the reasons behind this “desperate flight,” which led to the deaths of more than 12,000 migrants who drowned in the Mediterranean, remained a secondary issue. Yet both the tragedies and their underlying causes continue, not only in the Mediterranean but also in other parts of the world. According to IOM estimates, between 7,000 and 8,000 “known deaths” occurred along migration routes in 2025. In other words, 21 people lost their lives every day while fleeing persecution, poverty, and captivity. Behind today’s migrant crises, and those that will continue to unfold as flights for survival, lies a global, indeed universal, reality that we all know but hesitate to admit: the deep and unjust gap in income and welfare across the world. This gap also further entrenches the lack of democracy, freedoms, human rights, and the rule of law. For billions of people who suffer both hunger and persecution, the conditions that lead them to risk death in search of a better life emerge almost inevitably.

The EU’s migration trauma of 2014-2016 has today evolved into a dynamic that threatens the EU itself and the values it claims to uphold. The migration issue, which also significantly impacted the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU in 2020, is now considered one of Europe’s most serious security risks. Moreover, this process appears to have rapidly created space across Europe for the rise to power of far-right and racist political movements that have made anti-migrant sentiment their banner. Regardless of the measures taken by EU countries, or by wealthy and prosperous states such as the United States and Canada, where people feel protected, this process seems likely to continue intensifying in such a deeply unequal world. Nevertheless, one point is worth emphasizing: just as the reflex of countries exposed to migration to protect themselves from “unauthorized arrivals” is legitimate, the movement of those who set out in search of even a minimally humane life is legitimate as well.

You may read evaluation note from here.