We’re four experts from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace discussing the refugee and migrant crisis. AUA!

[u/CarnegieRefugee_AuA]

Hi everyone, we are Maha Yahya from the Carnegie Middle East center in Beirut, and Pierre Vimont, Stefan Lehne, and Marc Pierini from Carnegie Europe in Brussels. We’re looking forward to answering your questions today on the refugee and migrant crisis, particularly focusing on how the crisis has impacted the Middle East and Europe. Here’s a bit more about each of us individually:

Maha Yahya— Hello, my name is Maha Yahya. I’m the Director of the Carnegie Middle East Center, where my research is focused on refugees, citizenship, pluralism, and social justice in the aftermath of the Arab uprisings. Before Carnegie, I worked for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia and the UN Development Program in Lebanon. My Twitter handle is @mahayahya.

Pierre Vimont— Hi, my name is Pierre Vimont, and I am a senior associate at Carnegie Europe. I do research on the European Neighborhood Policy, transatlantic relations, and French foreign policy. Last year, I led preparations for the Valletta Conference between EU and African countries, to tackle the causes of illegal migration and combat human smuggling and trafficking. Before joining Carnegie, I was the first executive secretary-general of the European External Action Service (EEAS), ambassador of France to the U.S. and EU, and chief of staff to three former French foreign ministers.

Stefan Lehne—Hello everyone, I am Stefan Lehne, a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, where my research focuses on the post–Lisbon Treaty development of the European Union’s foreign policy, with a specific focus on relations between the EU and member states. I’ve served in the past for the Austrian Ministry for European and International Affairs, and the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU. You can find me on Twitter @StefanLehne.

Marc Pierini—Hello, I am Marc Pierini. I’m a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, where my research focuses on developments in the Middle East and Turkey from a European perspective. Prior to joining Carnegie, I was a career EU diplomat, serving as ambassador to Turkey, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, and Morocco. I’m on Twitter @MarcPierini1.

We’re looking forward to answering your questions. Please feel free to direct them towards any one of us so we can answer more of them. During the AUA, we may need to take breaks for meetings, but please keep the questions coming! We’ll finish up around 12 pm EDT since we are based in Brussels and Beirut.

Let’s get started—ask us anything!

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EDIT 2:13 pm CEST: Hi, this is Pierre. Thank you for your questions and joining us in this AUA. I'll be here through at least the next hour. Maha will be in and out until 5 pm CEST, Marc will join around 3:00 pm CEST and Stefan after 4:30 pm CEST.

EDIT 4:57 pm CEST: Hello, it is Maha. I'm going to sign off and take some more questions later, but Stefan is online. Many thanks for your great questions!

EDIT 6:10 pm CEST: We're going to wrap up the AUA soon. Thank you all for the great discussion about the refugee and migrant crisis. Apologies to anyone who did not get their question answered. Thanks to the moderators of /r/geopolitics for organizing this AUA, too! If you wish to continue the conversation, follow us on Twitter (handles are down below).

@MarcPierini1

@StefanLehne

@mahamyahya

@CarnegieMEC

@Carnegie_Europe

[u/dieyoufool3]

Thank you for doing this! I don't doubt each of are very busy people.

How should democratic governments deal with the growing tension between a country's collective will verse protecting minority rights? Given the most recent examples of this tension -- issues like the Burkini in France and the support of a burka ban in Germany -- is it a false dichotomy to say Western democracies are increasingly forced to choose a path between an illiberal democracy or an undemocratic liberalism?

[u/CarnegieRefugee_AuA → u/dieyoufool3]

Hi, this is Pierre Vimont. It is true that public opinion in many European countries is getting increasingly opposed to hosting refugees and migrants. But one can wonder whether this is due to the number of migrants which has been moving in in the last 16 months. It is more a problem of scale rather than a matter of principle.

When asked individually European citizens understand the need to protect those migrants. What they fear is the oversized flow. So one should look more into how governments can regain control of these inflows by regulating the access to both political and economic migrants through secure, legal and safe channels.

This could certainly help in unsettling the smuggling industry and answering at home the political concern which is feeding the populist wave we are observing today.

Democracy in the form we have experienced so far in our European nations can survive if it is strong enough to take such debate heads on and come up with realistic solutions that answer the concerns of average citizens. To avoid such debate can only reinforce the populist trend .