Independent language of migration

Syria is the largest and most immediate bleeding wound.

And Europe’s response to date is far from the rhetoric of a union founded on the values of respect for human dignity and the protection of human rights. 

Four years into the Syrian civil war, the dramatic refugee crisis can no longer be ignored by European and American leaders.

They will make a compelling case for protection based on their “well-founded fear of persecution”, the defining characteristic of a refugee in the 1951 Refugee Convention. Depressingly, they are but a fraction of the 20 million refugees and 40 million internally displaced people uprooted by conflict and persecution – the highest level ever recorded by the UN Refugee Agency.

The causes of this human tragedy need to be addressed at source. There is a clear need for European Union leaders to use the bloc’s unique combination of diplomatic, political and development assets to re-energise moribund peace processes, and to expend the diplomatic capital necessary to stay the violence that uproots an average of 42,500 people every day.

The economies, basic services and infrastructure of Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq are collapsing under the pressure of sheltering more than four million refugees. Jordan alone expects the cost of hosting Syrians to amount to $4.2bn by 2016. 

The first is to ensure that refugees arriving in Europe are treated with humanity and dignity. 

This means ensuring that traumatised arrivals receive food, water, medical assistance, safe shelter and access to toilets as soon as they arrive, rather than enduring the squalid conditions that currently greet them. 

The third step is to establish a fair, comprehensive, common European asylum policy, which ensures that all asylum applications are processed according to international standards, and shares out responsibility for hosting refugees among all EU member states.

English European Union leaders will attempt to charm Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan today at a Brussels summit, as they seek his help to staunch the flow of Syrian refugees to Europe. 

With Turkey currently hosting nearly two million Syrian refugees, the EU wants Erdogan to prevent them heading west, exacerbating a migration crisis that is already testing the limits of European solidarity. 

for any refugees being returned – in spite of European concerns that the growing campaign against Kurds makes Turkey less safe for some.

EU governments suspect this is less about resolving a humanitarian crisis and more about crushing the Kurds,There is already widespread dismay in Europe

Erdogan has been dismissive of the recent EU convulsions over the influx of refugees, pointing out that the estimated 500,000 who have arrived in Europe so far this year pales in comparison with two million Syrians he is hosting, of whom around 15 per cent are in state-run camps. Last month he accused the EU of turning the Mediterranean into a "cemetery".