The EU needs a proper strategy that allows migrants a legal form of access. The current situation of the camps in and around the EU is unacceptable. The issue of clarifying immigration regulations for the EU must not be put off any longer.

At the beginning of May, large demonstrations against the policy of the government have taken place in Warsaw, Poznan and Wroclaw. The initiator of these and other former demonstrations in the last months is the movement KOD (Komitet Obrony Demokracji), the Committee for the Defense of Democracy. Veronika Felder and Michael Álvarez Kalverkamp spoke with Aleksandra Śniegocka-Goździk und Jarosław Marciniak, two KOD members, about the movement and the current situation in Poland.

In France economic and social problems, terrorism and internal security are viewed as more important than the migrant crisis. Seeing the migrant flows as a result of conflicts in the Arab world they deal with the problem with military assistance.

Turkey is hosting some 2.7 million Syrian refugees. Only one tenth are in camps and the rest spread around urban areas. Local cultural and religious affinity with them has kept social friction low.

Czech society is polarised by attitudes to refugees. This is absurd given that fact that only 1,156 have applied for asylum in a country of ten million people. Xenophobia and hysteria drive the debate.

Due to their recent history many Croatians understand the plight of refugees. Others fear the influx of different cultural and religious influences, and the effects on the economic situation.

During the Slovak parliamentary election campaign even moderate parties adopted anti-immigrant language. But the strategy backfired and far-right politicians entered parliament.

Whilst the refugee crisis has dominated debates in Germany since 2015, it plays a subordinate role in France where the war on Islamist terrorism and tackling the problem with military intervention.

Thousands of Syrians have sought shelter in Lebanon. But having such a precarious status there and no legal recognition many feel their best option is to try entering the EU via the Mediterranean.

Currently the debate on nuclear weapons in the European Union is not making any progress, this could be due to the failure of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2015. Nevertheless, a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Europe should still be envisaged.