Europe says it’s facing a “migration crisis.” But what if the crisis didn’t start in Africa or the Middle East—what if it started in Washington, London, and Brussels?
In this APT Opinion deep dive, we break down the argument Europe refuses to confront: the people drowning in the Mediterranean aren’t fleeing “failed states”—they’re fleeing the ruins of Western wars. From Iraq to Libya to Syria, Western interventions turned functioning nations into firestorms of displacement. And now, Europe calls the survivors a “border problem.”
The EU’s 2025 Asylum and Migration Report labels Spain, Italy, Greece, and Cyprus as “under migratory pressure,” while countries like Poland and Hungary refuse to take migrants or pay fines.
00:00What if I told you that Europe's migration crisis isn't really about Africa at all?
00:06That the people drowning in the Mediterranean aren't really fleeing failed states.
00:10They're fleeing the wreckage of Western wars.
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00:17And before we get started, make sure to hit subscribe and drop your views in the comments.
00:22Here's the question.
00:23When you see yet another overcrowded boat sinking off the coast of Italy or Greece,
00:29whose fault is it?
00:31Do you see a tragedy or a consequence?
00:45Because here's the uncomfortable truth.
00:48Europe's migration crisis is not an accident.
00:52It's the blowback from decades of Western intervention, regime change and resource wars.
00:58Iraq, Libya, Syria, each one turned into chaos by the very nations now building walls and detention centers to keep their own victims out.
01:10Let's start with Iraq.
01:12In 2003, Washington and London invaded a fully functioning state under the banner of freedom.
01:18What they left behind was sectarian war, mass displacement and an entire region on fire.
01:26Fast forward a decade, ISIS rises from the ashes of that invasion and millions flee.
01:32Where do they go?
01:34Europe.
01:34Then came Libya, the richest nation in Africa, turned overnight into a failed state after NATO bombed it in 2011.
01:44Muammar Gaddafi once warned Europe,
01:46if you destroy Libya, you destroy the barrier stopping migrants from Africa.
01:51They laughed at him then.
01:53Well, they're not laughing anymore.
01:55And Syria?
01:56The so-called Arab Spring was weaponized into a proxy war.
02:01The US, Britain and France poured billions into arming rebels.
02:06Russia stepped in to protect its ally Assad.
02:09The result?
02:10Half of Syria's population displaced, millions flooding into Turkey, Lebanon and Europe.
02:16So, when you hear European leaders talking about border pressure, remember, these are the borders that were broken, deliberately broken, by Western bombs.
02:28Now, fast forward to 2025.
02:31The European Commission has just released its first annual asylum and migration report.
02:36Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus are classified as under migratory pressure.
02:41That phrase, migratory pressure, is Brussels Creek for being overwhelmed.
02:48Last year, these nations saw a disproportionate level of arrivals, including those rescued at sea.
02:54So, in 2026, they'll receive help through something called the Solidarity Pool.
03:00Sounds like it's sorted, right?
03:02In theory, every EU member has to help out either by accepting asylum seekers or by paying up.
03:08But here's where Europe's moral crisis meets its political one.
03:13Poland, Hungary and Slovakia have flat out refused.
03:18Donald Tusk, Poland's Prime Minister, said,
03:20Poland will not be accepting migrants under the Migration Pact, nor will we pay for it.
03:26Hungary's Viktor Orban, same story.
03:29We didn't cross this problem, he says.
03:31We won't pay for it.
03:33So, what's Brussels doing?
03:34But hold on, solidarity with whom?
03:46With the victims of their own wars?
03:49Or with the system that created them?
03:51Every child who drowns in the Mediterranean is a monument to Western hypocrisy.
03:57Because it's Europe which built the crisis that it is now pretending to manage.
04:02Look closer and you'll see how this system works.
04:05The Solidarity Pool sets a minimum of 30,000 relocations and 600 million euro in financial contributions.
04:12Each country, except those under migratory pressure, has three choices.
04:17First, take in a certain number of asylum seekers.
04:21Second, pay 20,000 euros for every person that they refuse.
04:26Third option, fund operational support in frontline states.
04:30In short, Europe has turned morality into a spreadsheet.
04:35Lives are now line items, either relocated, paid for or outsourced.
04:41The Commission also lists 12 other states at risk of migratory pressure.
04:46That includes Belgium, Germany, France and Poland.
04:49Yes, Poland, which refuses to cooperate, is also listed as facing its own migration risks.
04:56Irony doesn't even begin to cover it.
04:59And then there's a third category.
05:01Countries facing a significant migratory situation.
05:05Like Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia.
05:08These nations can apply for exemptions, but only if other EU members all agree.
05:14It's a bureaucratic maze and one that reveals Europe's paralysis.
05:19Here's what Brussels doesn't want to admit.
05:22It's not that Europe lacks a migration policy.
05:25It's that Europe's wars have made any policy meaningless.
05:29Because no wall is high enough, no patrol boat is fast enough to stop the tidal wave of consequences
05:35that started in Baghdad, Tripoli and Aleppo.
05:40And while Europe bickers over quotas, others move in.
05:43So yes, migration is being weaponized.
06:07But hardly by Russia or China, as Brussels claims.
06:11Russia and China are not the main players here.
06:14Migration today is being weaponized by the same Western policies that destabilized entire continents.
06:21Europe's divisions over migration are not just moral.
06:25They're geopolitical.
06:26When Warsaw and Budapest refuse to take in refugees,
06:30they're defying Brussels, yes.
06:31But look at the big picture.
06:33They're exposing the cracks in a crumbling project.
06:37The European Union.
06:38It wanted to be a moral superpower.
06:41What it's become instead is a fortress.
06:44One that cannot decide whether it's protecting democracy
06:47or just protecting itself from the consequences of its own hypocrisy.
06:52Because let's be honest,
06:53the refugee in the tiny boat did not start the war in Iraq.
06:57The mother on that overcrowded raft did not bomb Libya.
07:00The child washed up on the beach did not fund the Syrian insurgency.
07:05But all of them are paying the price for the West's appetite.
07:10For control, for resources, for power.
07:14And now, Europe is paying too.
07:16Not in lives lost at sea, but with its own identity.
07:20Its identity that is now coming to be defined by its paralysis, its fear.
07:25So next time a European leader says we must protect our borders, ask them this.
07:31Protection from whom?
07:32From desperate families running from the fires that we lit?
07:36Or from the truth that the West's moral compass no longer points north?
07:41Europe's migration crisis isn't about migration.
07:48It's about memory.
07:49It's about accountability.
07:51And it's about denial.
07:53It's about a civilization that cannot look in the mirror without seeing the ruins that it left behind.
07:58If you've stuck with me this far, I really want to hear from you.
08:03Do you think Europe's migration crisis is a product of bad policy or poetic justice?
08:09What should be done now?
08:11Who needs to pay?
08:13Drop your comments below.
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08:16And remember, behind every border, there's a story.
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