The EU's new migration pact is intended to neutralise the far right - it risks empowering it | Daniel Trilling

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

51% : Their first stop, the people-smuggling hub of Agadez, Niger, is the capital of a country into which the EU has poured millions of euros in recent years to combat smuggling.
49% : At the same time, "solidarity" measures aim to set basic accommodation standards across the EU and relieve the pressure on states at the bloc's physical frontiers.
46% : During sudden spikes in the number of people arriving - for instance, if there's a refugee crisis in a neighbouring region - asylum seekers can be relocated elsewhere in the EU.
43% : The new laws allow for enhanced screening and surveillance of irregular migrants at EU borders, with a "fast track" process for asylum applications and greater powers to return people ineligible for asylum to their countries of origin.
42% : When the boys eventually make it on to a rusty boat and set off across the Mediterranean for Italy, they enter a space where the EU has curtailed search and rescue operations, and where volunteer rescuers have faced persistent harassment from European authorities.
38% : Human rights NGOs, on the other hand, warn that in combination, these measures will lead to the increased use of detention at EU borders - for example in the kind of "closed" reception centres that Greece already operates - and an increased risk that people will be sent back to countries where their lives are in danger.

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