Europe is facing its most serious migration¹ crisis since the end of the second world war. It is more serious even than the Bosnian crisis of the 1990s, when close to 2m refugees fled west, for although the numbers now are smaller the nature of the outflow is different. Those refugees were granted temporary asylum² and required to return to their place of origin when the conflict subsided³. No such outcome is in prospect⁴ today.

欧洲正面临二战结束以来最严重的移民危机。这次的危机比上世纪90年代的波斯尼亚危机（当时有近200万难民逃往西方）还要严重。之所以这么说，是因为尽管这次危机涉及的移民数量少于那次，但这次人口外流的性质却与那次截然不同。那一次，难民们得到了临时的庇护，待到冲突平息后被要求返回原籍国。这一次却无望得到这样的结果。

Legally speaking, a refugee is a person outside his or her country of origin who had to flee to seek refuge from persecution⁵ or open warfare⁶. It is understood that asylum will be sought in the first safe country reached; someone who leaves a country where there is no threat of persecution is no longer motivated by a quest for safety.

从法律上讲，难民是指一个为躲避迫害或公开交战而被迫逃离了原籍国的人。这些人在其抵达的首个安全国家寻求避难是可以理解的；如果某个人离开的是个不存在迫害威胁的国家，其动机就不再是寻求安全。

If you adopt this perspective, it is odd to say that Europe is on the receiving end of a massive refugee flow. Europe, as such, does not exist. On the one hand there are the countries of entry, namely Spain, Italy and Greece, which are quite content to let the arrivals land and discreetly⁷ move on to central and northern Europe. There are the likes of Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and the Baltic states, to which few people wish to emigrate, which are neither part of the problem nor of the solution. Finally there are the countries of destination such as Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Switzerland and Austria, to which many of the arrivals find their way.

如果你认可这个观点、却还说欧洲应当忍受大批难民流入，那就太奇怪了。这样的欧洲并不存在。首先，欧洲国家中存在一些移民的入境国，即西班牙、意大利和希腊，这些国家很乐意让移民登陆、然后神不知鬼不觉地继续向中欧和北欧前进。另外还存在像保加利亚、罗马尼亚、波兰和波罗的海诸国这样的国家，没什么人愿意移民到这些国家，所以这些国家既不属于麻烦的制造者，也不是属于解决方案的提供者。最后是像德国、荷兰、斯堪的纳维亚国家、瑞士和奥地利这样的移民目的国，许多移民会想方设法来到这些国家。

Clearly these latter countries do not have unlimited⁸ capacity to absorb new arrivals and cannot realistically be required to integrate, over the next decades, an unending flow of migrants from Africa and the Middle East. And, while these countries need migrants, it is up to them to choose whom to accept.

显然，最后一类国家没有无限接纳新移民的能力，从现实角度讲也不能要求它们在未来几十年里纳入不断涌来的非洲和中东移民。此外，即便这些国家需要移民，选择接受什么样的移民也取决于它们自己。

What to do? Perhaps inspiration can be found in the case of the Vietnamese boat people, about 70,000 of whom arrived on the shores of various southeast Asian countries in 1989 alone. The situation seemed hopeless, and yet that year an honourable⁹ solution was found through dialogue and negotiation¹⁰. Ultimately it worked. But it required imagination, creativity and political will.

那怎么办？也许可以从越南船民的例子中找到灵感。仅1989年一年，就有约7万越南船民抵达东南亚各国的海岸。当时的形势似乎是毫无希望的，但就在那一年，各方通过对话和谈判找到了一个体面的解决方案。最终，问题解决了。但是，这需要想象力、创造力以及政治意愿。

In Europe, the key is to distinguish between two separate crises. The first is rooted in Syria’s civil war. It requires primarily an Arab solution, yet none is in the making. Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees have been resettled, but not one of the countries that have offered permanent asylum is from the Arab world. It is clear that many of the Syrians who have been given temporary asylum in camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq will never be able to return. It would be reasonable for the wealthy countries of the Gulf¹¹ to receive a quota¹² of at least 1m refugees.

在欧洲，关键是要区分两个不同的危机。第一个危机根源于叙利亚内战。它主要需要一个阿拉伯解决方案，但这样的方案尚未制定。数以万计的叙利亚难民已得到重新安置，但提供永久性庇护的国家没有一个来自阿拉伯世界。显然，很多在黎巴嫩、约旦、土耳其和伊拉克难民营中得到临时庇护的叙利亚难民，将再也不能回到叙利亚。让海湾富国接收一定数量（至少100万）的难民是合乎情理的。

The second crisis is the influx¹³ of migrants from Africa arriving on Mediterranean¹⁴ shores. While the obligation to save lives is not negotiable, the question of what to do with the people whose lives are saved is not a point of detail. This obviously escaped the Italian authorities when they launched Mare¹⁵ Nostrum¹⁶, a well-meaning effort to save drowning migrants, which played into the hands of smugglers and encouraged further departures.

第二个危机是从非洲涌向地中海海岸的移民潮。尽管拯救生命是没得商量的责任，但该如何处置这些被拯救的生命可不是什么细枝末节的问题。意大利当局在启动“我们的海”(Mare Nostrum)行动时，显然忽视了这一点。该行动本是一项拯救落水移民的善意之举，结果却帮了人口贩子的忙，鼓励了更多人离开非洲。

Arrivals will continue until an adequate deterrent¹⁷ is put in place: the landing of every single migrant not on European soil but in a transit¹⁸ centre in Tunisia or Egypt, from where opportunistic migrants can be separated from genuine refugees and repatriated¹⁹.

移民潮还将继续下去，直到出台有力的遏止措施：即让每个移民不在欧洲的土地、而是在突尼斯或埃及的中转中心登陆，在那里甄别出投机性质的移民并把他们遣返。

Both of these crises require international action of the kind best brokered²⁰ by the European Commission or the UN. Neither of these bodies has shown the vision, intelligence and leadership needed. If a solution is to be found, it seems, it will have to be at the initiative of the handful of European countries directly concerned.

这两个危机均需要以国际行动加以应对，最好是那种由欧盟委员会(European Commission)或联合国(UN)斡旋而成的行动。但这两家机构均未表现出解决危机所需的视野、智慧和领导力。如果想找到一个解决方案，似乎只能靠少数几个直接相关的欧洲国家来发起努力了。