Barring an influx of younger people from Africa and Asia, the EU will become increasingly old, weak and irrelevant. Instead, the EU is focussing on stopping irregular migrants crossing the Mediterranean. To be fair, each EU country has procedures for dealing with migrants who arrive through legal routes. That’s a long way short of the height of the Syrian crisis in 2015, when about 1.8 million refugees crossed EU borders. The hope is that the Mediterranean countries will then process asylum seekers when they arrive - and the EU’s internal borders will stay open.

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Persons: Giorgia Meloni, Marine Le, Italy don’t, Martinez, Peter Thal Larsen, Katrina Hamlin, Thomas Shum Organizations: Reuters, Eurostat, EU, Reuters Graphics, Italian, Centre, European, Bank, Thomson Locations: Africa, Asia, EU, Spain, Europe, Turkey, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Lampedusa, Tunis, West Balkan, United Kingdom, That’s, Germany, Austria, Poland, Italy, Hungary, Saharan Africa, Latin America