If this sounds callous – and perhaps it does – it is important to measure the EU’s new hard-nosed approach against the sentimental one deployed by Angela Merkel last year, which led to more than a million migrants pouring into Europe in an uncontrolled fashion.

The failure to be realistic about Europe’s willingness to absorb such vast migrant flows itself inflicted great costs on the European Union.

It exposed Europe’s east-west divisions as Hungary, Poland and others simply rebelled; it fuelled the rise of far-Right parties like National Front in France and the Alternative for Germany (AfD), and it threatened the breakdown of the Schengen agreement, itself a cornerstone of the European economy.

Last year proved beyond all reasonable doubt that decrying Europe’s lack of solidarity on this issue is not an answer to the problem – depressing though that lack of solidarity might be.

Mrs Merkel tried to force the point, ramming through a deal to relocate 160,000 refugees around Europe, but she was roundly ignored: six months later less than 1,000 asylum claimants have been moved.

Such ill-considered schemes hold Europe and its laudable post-War ideals up to a ridicule and contempt that it can ill-afford. Much better, if Europe is serious about meeting its obligations to genuine war refugees, to get a firm grip.