On Oct. 13, the European Society — which was the Central & Eastern European Society Student Interest Group until fall 2016 — hosted their first event of the semester at NYU Abu Dhabi, a panel discussion titled The Migrant and Refugee Crisis in Europe: One Year On. Challenges and Solutions.

Among the panelists were Visiting Professor of Sociology Alejandro Portes from Princeton University, Assistant Professor Laila Prager from the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Hamburg, Head of the EU Delegation to the UAE His Excellency Patrizio Fondi and Head of UNHCR’s Office in the UAE Toby Harward. NYUAD members who participated in the panel included Global Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Public Policy Sophia Kalantzakos. Seniors Annalisa Galgano and Guillaume Sylvain presented during the event but were separate from the panel.

The panel began with a brief introduction to migration routes and trends by senior Toma Pavlov, president of the European Society. Alongside Pavlov, senior Anna Serobyan and junior Karolina Wilczyńska, panel organizers and SIG members, served as moderators for the two-part discussion.

In September 2015, a similar discussion organised by the SIG, focusing on the European migrant crisis as it has come to be known, took place at NYUAD, which ended with Visiting Global Distinguished Professor of Political Science Ronald Rogowski saying, “This has to be a shared burden … it's not just Europe's problem."

Similar to the 2015 event, many panelists on Thursday night reiterated the same sentiment, highlighting the fact that the migrant and refugee crisis in Europe has become a global problem. It was noted that the migration issue at hand is both historical and hysterical — historical, because the migration issue in Europe is an unprecedented case of cross-continental human movement, and hysterical, because people react to the situation emotionally rather than rationally.

It was further stated that EU’s agenda is not to solve the problem of migration, which is near impossible, but rather to manage the problem. It was said that countries of origin, transit countries and EU states are all impacted, and therefore, there is a dire need for all parties to come together and devise a systematic approach to manage refugees and their resettlement in various parts of Europe. There was an emphasis on the fact that EU has invested a large sum of money as well as human resources in integration and resettlement programs.

However, some panelists argued that the issues at hand are not entirely managerial or logistical, insisting that the situation regarding refugee migration and resettlement is rife with political agendas. It was pointed out that with the rise of right-wing political parties, it becomes clear that the issue is not based entirely on economic terms.

It was also highlighted that definitions of migrants and refugees lead to changes in behavior and reception in host countries. People who have been forced to migrate due to wars and have citizenship papers from Syria or Iraq are welcomed and integrated into classes and language programs. Palestinians, who are coming from Syria but have no documentation of belonging to either Syria or Palestine, are not welcomed into such programs. Moreover, people from countries such as Afghanistan that have been proclaimed as safe by authorities are not welcomed at all.

In a break between the two parts of the panel, Sylvain and Galgano presented their summer work and research. Galgano was working with Kalantzakos in Athens, interviewing refugees, policymakers and service providers about the situation in Greece; her capstone is devoted to proposing policies aiming to increase dignity in displaced masses. Sylvain was working with Refugee Rescue UK as an Arabic translator; he acted as an intermediary between refugees and other crew members and authorities.

According to the European Society, over 160 members of the NYUAD community, diplomats from the Canadian embassy in Abu Dhabi, ambassodor from Portugal and students from Paris-Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi and the Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Scholars Program attended the event.