A crisis that should never be repeated?

Tuesday 21 June, 1pm

Now taking place online only via MS Teams

In the past year, two refugee movements have provoked very different reactions from European governments. When thousands of people tried to flee Afghanistan as the Taliban took over the country in August 2021, the immediate response of many political leaders was to vow that there would be no repeat of the crisis at Europe's borders in 2015. Some commentators have even seen this hardening of attitudes as a dress rehearsal for the response to a potentially greater number of people displaced by climate change in the coming years.

By contrast, the millions of people displaced from Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022 have been met with a striking openness elsewhere in Europe, even from governments that had previously set themselves against refugees. What does this tell us about the way the west is likely to respond to displacement in future - and what might the alternatives be?

Daniel Trilling is a journalist and author based in London who writes for the Guardian, London Review of Books and others about migration, nationalism and human rights. His work has been shortlisted for the 2022 Orwell Prize for journalism and his most recent book, Lights in the Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe, was shortlisted for the 2019 Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing.

 

 

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