The Greatest Financial Challenge Facing My Generation: Refugee Crisis

Edward Lovatt 

The most challenging financial crisis our generation will face is coping with the financial strain the refugee crisis in Europe is putting on the European Union (EU). This is because of many reasons which will be elaborated on further into the essay. For example the fact that finances in the EU are not in a good state is well known, with Europe having to repeatedly bail out and lend Greece money for many years now. Also many European countries do not have enough money to deal with all their problems in society and the problems of their own economy, like Spain which had an economic crash in 2009. Also the effects this mass migration is putting on the housing system in these countries is immense as just in our country alone we do not have enough affordable houses for our own population, let alone the new refugees being taken into the country also as the refugees have no Pound Sterling they cannot pay for anything the government is providing for them.

In Britain the main problem is the fact that we do not have enough houses to house all of our own population and the problem is the same throughout most of the EU. If we have to build more homes for the refugees a this means it will cost our government more to build more accommodation and this costs money around £38,000 for each house alone, or roughly from last years figures: £535,800,000 without services included, which is something our government does not have considering we are already £4.8 trillion in debt. We are expected to contribute heavily to the money being lent to Greece after their economic crash and other EU countries. The strain the influx of refugees is putting on the EU is evident as countries they are in are struggling to cope financially even more so than before the influx of refugees, more so than they were before, so needing more money from the EU. House prices in Britain are already growing rapidly so combining this with the fact that the refugees will not be able to buy their own houses the government will indefinitely lose money by even building and providing these houses. 

Also the migrants will not be able to buy food for themselves when they enter the country as they have nothing, so the government will have to provide them with money to spend here as well as for them to live off. This is not economical for our government or any other government in the EU. Also most of the EU is going into negative interest rates to weaken the euro or their own currency in an attempt to counteract inflation. This is not working for some, however Switzerland has been in deflation for almost a year now, which is good for the Swiss Franc and Switzerland’s economy. Having the refugees in the EU, is putting unnecessary strain on the already fragile EU economy as so much of the EU is now having to deal with over 160,000 asylum seekers (EU average) instead of the projected amount of about 70,000 (EU average). That is an extra 90,000 people to fund and those are a small proportion of the refugees moving through Europe legally.

In the EU’s current financial state of €12 trillion in debt means the EU is not really in any position to have 103,000 migrants wandering Europe freely (last June’s figures). This puts massive strain on the EU financial system and the countries within the EU as they have to erect fences and create more border points to stop refugees from entering their country illegally this is how the majority of refugees move through Europe. The EU is also having to support all of the extra people who do not have a European passport so are not able to move under the EU’s Freedom of Movement law. This means that they cannot move from each EU country to the next without seeking asylum; most migrants move freely ignoring the border points for asylum applications. This make it extremely difficult to track the illegal travellers so they are putting extra strain on the finance system by not registering as it costs money to hold these people and track their movements. Also the operations to help those at sea who come over on  the transport ships are also costing the EU millions to monitor them. Considering the fact that most EU countries are in trillions of debt anyway every little bit of money available helps towards righting these debts. Immigration levels are up from places across the world like Asia as well and this does not help the EU as it puts more strain on the finance system and public services in EU countries.

In conclusion the refugees from North Africa and the Middle East are putting unnecessary strain on the EU’s finance services and public services in the EU’s countries for example the Cologne attacks, the police force in Cologne is struggling to find the attackers and more importantly most or all of the attackers are refugees taken in by Germany! This means that having refugees in the countries in the EU is a dangerous for that country's citizens and bad for that country’s economy as they do not have possessions, money or housing in these countries and no money to pay with so the governments there have to pay for all of the refugees needs and the public services like healthcare they will use. So refugees are putting unnecessary stress on the EU’s financial system and paying for them will, as the evidence suggests, be the biggest financial challenge our generation will have to deal with.