There is a difference between asylum-seekers and labour migrants. This is why repatriation of some of these people back to Turkey excludes Syrians to a large degree. It is not entirely clear how the EU is going to deal with this. In an interview with valdaiclub.com, Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, shared his view on the ongoing refugee crisis and the future of multiculturalism.

       Spring has come and with it, a new wave of migrants is expected to flood the European Union. Has Europe drawn any lessons from last year’s crisis and how do you think it will react to this tide this year?

       One thing, which may reduce the migration flow from Syria, is the ceasefire. But, although, Syria was the largest quotient last year, there were also many people from Afghanistan, where war continues, Eritrea, where the crisis is getting deeper, and of course the mass migration wave from sub-Saharan Africa, which is not going to decrease in the coming years as ecological and political crisis continues and intensifies. Basically, the European Union does not really know what to do.

       One of the waves is due to the political crisis in the Middle East, but there is a long-term demographic pressure on the European Union. So there are no easy answers.

       Obviously, the long-term answer is to establish peace in the Middle East so that not only new waves of migration can be stemmed, but also some of the refugees can go back home, above all those in the camps in Lebanon and Jordan, where we know there are millions waiting. So we have to have peace in Syria and Iraq first. And for that, we have to have a larger strategic consensus between Russia and its western partners. There are foundations for it now developing, but these need to be built on.

       There seems to be a problem with that some people coming to Europe are labour migrants, not refugees – from countries like Pakistan, where life is hard, but there is no war, or Kosovo, the pet project of NATO and the EU. Does the EU have adequate mechanisms to separate these people from the real refugees fleeing war?

       Indeed, there is a difference between asylum-seekers and labour migrants. This is why repatriation of some of these people back to Turkey excludes Syrians to a large degree. It is not entirely clear how the EU is going to deal with this. Ultimately the question is: does this put a long-term demographic pressure on the European Union which makes the Schengen agreement unsustainable - and indeed the framework under which it now works, the Dublin convention, which means that incomers have to appeal for asylum in the first country where they go and this of course means these are the frontline countries. The countries away from the frontline insist on maintaining the Dublin convention and at this moment there is no unity in the EU as to how to deal with these things. And of course, it puts huge pressure on societies internally, as we have seen in Germany in the last few months.

       Do you see a rift in the making between the traditional European powers like Germany or France and the New Europe whose countries are dissatisfied with the way the former try to tackle the migration crisis.

       There is certainly a plenty of divisions, because Poland and some other countries are refusing to accept a system of quotas. The Germans and French are insisting on shared responsibility. There are also countries like the United Kingdom, which are not taking many refugees, but on the other side Britain is one of the most generous in terms of supporting refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. I think it is not a bad strategy – and certainly the larger strategy is to remove the conditions which force these pressures. But this is a long-term strategy which no one is thinking about.

       Do you think Europe is ready to reassess multiculturalism as it is being swarmed by hundreds of thousands of people whose attitudes are sharply different even from those of second or third immigrant population in the EU?

       Two years ago Angela Merkel – but also the then French President Nicholas Sarkozy and David Cameron - said that multiculturalism had failed. I do not know what they meant by this – I do not think they knew what they meant – because if they simply meant that the indigenous culture has to give up its autonomy in the face of incomers, that has never been the agenda.

       What multiculturalism in the best sense is, is that all the communities take part in a shared experiment to share cultures, when each retains the best of their own. It is quite clear that, for example, the United Kingdom has benefited enormously from the change of the social and ethnic makeup in many respects, but all societies are going to find limits to it. The problem about multiculturalism is that they argue there has not been enough effort to give civic education and identification with the host country. This was always going to be an issue, but this is not going to be done by simple programmes of patriotic education. It has to be done in the schools, it has to be done in daily life. So multiculturalism will not go away, because we’ll continue to have a society of many cultures. And that is actually very healthy. What we have to find is a shared commitment to democratic and civic values. Of course, the question has always been the limits to liberal tolerance of difference. This is the biggest question and challenge facing western European societies today and each society has to find the answer to that question for itself.

       Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.