co-founder of the migration policy institute mr papademetriou thank you very much for your time it's great to have you on the show it is my pleasure happy to be here it's generally believed that the european union despite some initial confusion has got a handle on this migration crisis the numbers have stabilized you no longer see crowds of people storming train stations in the western balkans so they're in for at least has been taken under control i wonder though if the european migration policy has advanced much beyond controlling the gates has the e.u. figured out what it wants to do about it as opposed to simply stemming the flow well the answer is no they haven't but it is difficult to speak about european if by european you mean have the brussels institutions come up with some sort of an answer to all of this the answer is not. primarily because the european institutions do not have the mandate the authority to make decisions when it comes

to migration now the european member states all twenty eight of them still twenty eight. have every right to have different policies and some of these policies are succeeding for some of these countries and some of them are failing. until very recently just two months ago. italy you could say that you could have said that italy that either does not have a policy or it is struggling to develop a policy but you know they were still getting a couple hundred thousand people coming to their shores across the central mediterranean but three months ago they cut a deal with libya and libya has corporator them as a result we see essentially flows across the central mediterranean down to less than twenty percent of what they were in may or of march or april of this year i heard want to european officials. say that the migration policies were designed for

fair weather conditions and what they encountered the two thousand and fifteen was a perfect storm but i take it from your riding that compared to what's forming currently in africa this massive population explosion. is going to make the events of two thousand and fifteen as challenging as they were look like light spring rain is the worst yet to come. well certainly there are no guarantees about the future this there are probably somewhere between two hundred thousand and three hundred thousand people who have amassed in the north of libya. there are only a couple of possible options the one that the european union and italy and the key member states italy germany france etc are trying to implement is give us systems to these people to go back to their countries and the the international organizations that are working on the ground in northern libya are

saying that this is the most frequently asked service that migrants. you know are asking for so a lot of people who have spent a lot of time on the road have decided that they're not likely to make it across the central mediterranean and they'd rather be given a bonus gift whatever you want to call it a thousand or fifteen hundred euro to go back home some others may purse of year and the biggest problem that we now have been in in the libyan shores is that the conditions under which this migrants live are completely degraded and there's an awful lot of human trafficking an awful lot of abuse of people etc etc i think it's long been accepted by experts that this might mass migration from africa was going to be a major challenge for europe. it was predicted long before the arab spring it was

avid and from the demographic and economic trends and yet somehow that knowledge was never incorporated into western decisionmaking during the vance in libya back in two thousand and eleven and the ensuing destabilisation of north africa how do you explain that why why do you think europe didn't see it coming because governments typically are capable of dealing with a problem one. part of the problem at the time there is no evidence in most of the crisis around that part of the world that is what i call second and third order thinking in other words the objective was to bring down khadafy maybe there were some voices that said ok then what happens to all of those people who are only in libya because at that time there were one point five million people foreign workers who were working in libya but at the time the only thing that

everybody was trying to do is remove gadhafi now the world is now faced with record numbers of both refugees and internally displaced people and i think it's impossible to dispute that at least some of those numbers came as a result of those humanitarian or pseudo humanitarian interventions putting politics and blame game aside do you think the the numbers are high enough to dissuade potential interventions like that i do think the temptation will still be there when the world is once again faced with another quote unquote dictator well little temptation will always be there people will always try to test the limits or for in this particular case to test whether europe really means what it says because all the evidence on the ground is that europe never really means what it says it just says an awful lot of things so as a result people will continue to. this latest agreement and nobody knows

whether this is agreement is going to last three or four or five or six months of for that matter two or two and a half years which is the experience that we have with turkey but mr proper dmitri with all due respect in defense of europe i think europe is at least or some european countries are at least trying to face the end deal with the consequences of all of their own actions the united states was also a major player off of that intervention and yet we know that the trumpet ministration has just recently decided to cut the refugee selling at forty five thousand for the fiscal year of two thousand and eighteen which is five thousand last done a year before and represents an new record low for the united states what do you make of that do you take it as an anomaly of the trumpet ministration or is it perhaps the continuation of a long a longer term trend i think that certainly mr trump has sort of created an alternative world when it comes to refugees and the numbers and where

they're coming from and the requirements that they must meet etc etc and that alternative is cutting more than by half the numbers that mr obama had promised and the united states has always been gone back and forth on this matters but lever to the degree that the trumpet ministration has has brought in in terms of the numbers so clearly we have a new situation in washington well i cannot tell you and i think whoever says that they have a good idea they're probably lying to themselves is where the what mr trump is doing this year is going to be worth mr trump is going to do next year well i guess that's the only silver lining that that i see are people fighting but that the change has been not only to the numbers but also to the vocabulary are and they the language that the administration is using to describe the problem and. you know

better than i did that the trumpet musicians started to refer every fur to be isolation of. refugees seekers or asylum seekers as opposed to integration which is far more common term around the world do you read anything into this change of. well we're going back to essentially republican principles in this regard under the bush administration the second bush administration the conservatives used the world the same award a simulation all the time for them meaning for those conservatives you comers have to assimilate into the existing society rather than integrate which suggests a two way process so going back i don't care how many decades you will find that republicans use the word assimilation republican intellectuals use the word

assimilation i don't particularly think that there is any difference between the two terms except as you noted that they're trying to make a point that newcomers have to abide. become integrated into the existence of society well correct me if i'm wrong i think one more new thing that the administration is suggesting is that when they're considering the asylum claims or refugee claims they're going to consider not only the personal circumstances of a person requiring or asking for asylum but also he's or her likelihood of assimilating and that a fitting fitting into the american society that unnerved a lot of people but i wonder if you share those concerns because i took it from your writing that you at least when it comes to the european context also recommand a shortened duration of economic self-sufficiency let me put it that way self-sufficiency. extremely important because of

a number of reasons they're very important for immigrants and their families when people go to another country they go to another country. primarily to work and succeed provide for themselves and their families demonstrate to their families that they can make into a new place but more importantly of equal importance is the fact that newcomers by working hard by entering the labor force by bill able to learn their language etc etc they can demonstrate to the community of which they enter that indeed their contributors to that community to the economic life to the social life to the cultural life of the of the community this way the new truck grievances that often accompany the encounter between newcomers and the people who are already community members can begin to sort of tamp down and that is really what it is that we need

to accomplish we need to make sure that the grievances you know the arguments you know the mutual suspicions that are sort of they going never disappear but they can become second and third and fourth in terms of priorities but if it's a good important integration measure what's wrong with the trump administration articulating it more or less directly because i assumed that them the united states government's claim grants far fewer asylum and refugee visas than it is being asked so there is some selection process anyway and some people who have legitimate reasons to be a recognizer refugees are denied their claims if you have two people with the same or similar cases with the same legitimacy of getting. that status what's wrong with choosing somebody who you think would have easier time transitioning into your society and. well certainly you know that's

a little an argument that's quite legitimate and this is what this administration the trump administration is going to do follow a more closely than in the past there is clearly going to be or there has been it was a decision and clearly it's going to be implemented that will suggest that we're going to have if you you know if i could use the word a bias in favor of people who can assimilate more readily that means language that means not necessarily religion but you know sort of the cultural attributes that come with some religions and the typical f.o.c. of america which is all about self-reliance hard work and doing all of the things that you need to do in your private sphere you can believe in and practice whatever religion you want but when it comes to the public sphere you abide by the rules of the broader society they're going to pay more attention to

this but at the end of the day those things are very hard to measure and ultimately the people who will make decisions on the ground as to who which refugee to move forward may not pay nearly as much attention to these things as you know the president or the rhetoric coming from the white house wishes well that's a proper dimitry we have to take a short break now but we will be back in just a few moments statement. underwater.

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multiple injuries among countrymen to soak them to keep sophie home most of the work but the show's real you know most of the film to go mobile if you can book a pupil from the civil society yes but i don't know if it's a book or a moral some of what my. own i'm a bit of nothing but i have a kind of left off allowed me to see if the something that was. on the must something that set it. aside and then to huddles look ma itself but up to now maybe i made the comment before and after. birth.

welcome back to worlds apart with demetrius papa demetrio co-founder of the migration policy institute mr property material we began this conversation with africa which is expected to add another one point three billion people to the global population by two thousand and fifty and this idea that rich countries have to invest in africa in order to keep this booming population put has been around for quite some time you advocated for it for a number of years but it seems that the resources for its implementation and now scarcer than ever do you still think it's realizable. possible cure or put on the table for african development the amount is always going to be grossly grossly inadequate. i mean one can see if you consider the development levels of most of the countries in the middle of africa you realize that even the twenty two billion euro that the european commission thinks that they

can invest in africa between now and twenty thousand to two thousand and twenty two is merely a drop in the bucket and the european commission thinks that it can also motivate money from the european the various banks the european investment banks which will double that amount so forty four billion year over a period of time it sounds like a lot of money but relative to the need it probably not it is probably not going to make that much of a difference the one thing that the europeans have gotten right although i have no idea whether they'll be able to implemented is bringing the private sector in this way companies can invest and they can train people they under preferential conditions in terms of customs and you decide cetera et cetera can produce things in various african states which can then be exported to europe

without any tariffs if we managed to do that if they managed to do that then over the next twenty or thirty years you actually could have an entirely different situation in africa the one miscalculation on the part of the europeans is that somehow that's how that's what they have to do in order to actually reduce emigration pressure and that is silly now in one of your articles you compared the ears current migration challenge to the united states experience with mexico and central america where it took more than a generation and huge investments of all kinds before they flowed began to have bait and it's a very interesting comparison except for geography in barack radek systems. which make i think your look even more disadvantage that it is at first glance if it took the united states more than a generation how can you be sure that it's going to take another thirty forty years

as you just sat for europe because europe's challenges seem to be far more amounts in this regard well i'm hoping that twenty or thirty or forty years is going to make a big difference because presumably europe because of its own self interest will stick to this path and will invest more and more deeply united states investments in mexico have not been u.s. government investments you know that most of this investments have been made in the context of nafta and it is private sector money that has gone into mexico which has made and normally stay friends maybe a snarky russian comment but if europe was indeed minding its own self interest it would have never gotten involved in libya or syria for that matter i don't think the united states after wanted to change the mexican regime in a violent way and that is also perhaps the reason why that those efforts were more successful than the europeans this is an extremely good point and you know i

certainly i'm not going to say anything you know against it the united states has had primarily self interested approach to mexico but it has never really directly interfered into mexican politics at least not you know since let's say the end of this of the first world war but if we want to get to get to the true problems with the europeans you know both what europe and europe did the in the seventeenth and eighteenth and nineteenth century you know with its colonial policy is coming home to roost in other words you have to go back to realize that all of those things have roots in what individual member states in union. in europe did with africa in the past two centuries the same way that the u.k. and france and most recently the us have had to have done in the middle

east these are all things that are historical that go back a long time and there cannot just be fixed in a matter of a decade or more. the borders of many of these countries see both in the middle east and in africa a completely artificial and all of those things now a plane rolled into this mr by the mature you just said that there is things cannot be fixed in an hour in a matter of years and yet there has been some a temporary solution to it i know that you believe that you're bound migration was state stabilized largely because of the agreement between the e.u. and turkey and i'm correct recently has been i think very blunt about using blackmail to get what it wants how stable is that migration stabilisation isn't europe still add at the mercy of president erred on the whole i think once referred to migration as a tap that can be turned on and off yes and you know certainly he holds the upper

hand on this and he always threatens to use it but so far he hasn't. and the reason that he hasn't i suspect is because he sees something he thinks that he has a card that he may want to play in the future but he doesn't have to play so far and clearly that card if and when he plays it he's likely to play that as much for domestic politics as for politics with europe. mr. won what he needed from this deal with the you some money most of that money is going to be migrants and but certainly his ability to become the indispensable player with anything that has to do with not just turkey in its immediate neighborhood but the broader middle east he with the assistance of russia

and iran and iran has become indeed the indispensable player well he is also i made a member that contributed to his indispensability and said in certain way so it's not just russia and iran who are unable to him that's correct and you know as we all know i believe that turkey has probably the second largest army in the later after the united states i'm pretty sure that's true so clearly mr dunne and turkey are important critical players in all of this i cannot predict the future you know considering what he has been doing the last three or four months you know everything is up in the air as far as i'm concerned let me ask you as specifically about the domestic station in turkey because we hear a lot of talk about migration related tensions in europe to the rise of populist politics but a lot of my friends in turkey tell me that they no longer recognize their own community as there's been a large influx of people from conservative arab states not only the refugees but

also affluent arab families from from the golf and those people bring with them. very conservative values very conservative lifestyles that many turks in especially in cosmopolitan urban communities do not necessarily share you mentioned the de gea of chicken coming home to roost do you think mr add on could also get some blowback from from his own policies he may find out that indeed he may have made some miscalculations in this regard and this may be why. one of the miscalculations another one of those is you know of the idea that this flows this many many people that they are dead in the turkey's getting not just from from syria but iraq and other parts of the middle east may actually stay there and stay there for a long period of time and i don't know whether you know this is something that necessarily a positive thing as far as mr duran is concerned but mr erdogan is not going to be

president for ever. and we don't know how long any of us will live so we'll see of the passage of time in the next decade a decade and a half how these things play out i suspect that we're going to have an awful lot of syrians and others who will settle permanently in turkey as they organize themselves as they become fish and economic sort of units and as they develop roots in the and bring their own culture to turkey and all that that may create some frictions but i want to as somebody who has dedicated your entire professional career to the issue of migration how do you feel about migration being increasingly used as a as a tool of both international and some would argue domestic politics because even when it comes to turkey there are lots of people who argue that. there may be

a deliberate intent on the part of mr i don't want to brink conservative people into the cities because in the cities the support for his policies is at the lowest they they maybe some electoral much of a sense there is well how do you feel about such a challenging issue as migration being used for political and well you know there is this would not be the first instance of the last instance where this you know using migration for political ends would be something that political leaders may choose to have my gratian is you know playing with migration is like playing with. fire you have to always be able to control the fire you have to make sure that there is a legal orderly process through which people come into a country you have to have the opportunity to choose most of the people that come to our country and you have to make sure as you said in your introduction that the way which people come is not chaotic because chaos all with makes the local

populations extremely nervous and that's when you have all the frictions there were experiencing on and off i am a believer in long pendulum swings you know migration or so many different issues gets to a point where there is too much or the change is too fast and then people react and then policies follow that tries to sort of control it much more tightly and then the stream goes the other way sometimes it gets out of control and you have the kinds of things that mr trump is talking about but at the end of the day there is going to be more migration rather than less migration. mobility is the order of the day regardless of whether we have more globalization and more interdependence or less and in many countries immigrants have become such an

important political force in a sense have become veto groups when it comes to the politics of the place i'll give you a perfect example in many parts of the united states if you're anti immigrant if you sort of have and play out passions that i directed against mexican americans or mexicans or guatemalans so what have you you cannot survive the next election well mr pedometer i think chance on election provides counter argument to that but anyway we have to leave it to. here we are out of time i really appreciate your time of the show and job yours please share your comments and twitter facebook and . i hope to see same place same time here on worlds apart. all.

as you know in gears yeah you go until you go in to hurt us. to go in another place or through the. floor. just. glad. that's. not a. room should. be

somewhere. what we want is to put an end to nuclear testing and then to move towards a world free of nuclear weapons and to do that we have to bring countries who seek or who are of this ambition to understand that their national security doesn't depend on the possession of nuclear weapons.

another setback for islamic states is the syrian army liberates the city found my id in one of the terror groups last strongholds in the east of the country plus as we review the week's biggest stories. the syrian army continues to repel eisel from terrorists or province our correspondent follows the troops as they free another village from the terrorists also to come the failed expectations and more uncertainty for spain catalonia as president gives. his signals on the region's independence i'm afraid orders him to clarify whether.