Used during the Balkan crises, the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive may now be a solution to Europe’s refugee emergency

Europe’s attempts to deal with the influx of people attempting to cross its southern borders was one of the key issues throughout 2015. Olga Mitrovic writes that while various proposals have been made for addressing the crisis, the use of an existing mechanism – the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive – has so far received relatively little attention. She argues that offering temporary protection, as the EU did during the Balkan refugee crises in the 1990s, offers a clear solution to the current situation.