Refugee Responses: EU Perspectives Then and Now

In 2015, the EU faced a large number of refugees mainly from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, who were escaping war and harsh conditions in their home countries. Then came 2022, and the EU saw another wave of refugees, this time from Ukraine, fleeing Russia's invasion. What's interesting is how the EU officials talked about these two situations. By looking at how they described the refugee crises and who they thought was responsible, we can learn a lot about how different refugee groups are treated. In 2015, EU representatives often talked about a crisis at and of Europe's borders, and they saw refugees as threats to the safety, economy, and culture of EU countries.However, in 2022, they didn't talk much about a crisis, and when they did, it was about Ukraine's - and by extension, the EU's - security. They also saw Ukrainian refugees as being similar in terms of ethnicity and culture and felt it was urgent to protect them for humanitarian reasons. This shows how different refugee groups can be treated very differently, which raises questions about fairness in how refugee issues are managed.