It can also mean putting pressure on European countries that are not member states — in the Balkans in particular — to reduce the number of their citizens applying for asylum in the European Union with the threat of restoring mandatory visa requirements. These tactics have led to the adoption, usually by Europe’s proxies, of unlawful measures like ethnic profiling at border crossings, the confiscation of travel documents and physical measures to repel migrants.

What is especially offensive in all this is that, with the exception of Turkey, European countries are far from experiencing the kind of refugee pressures that much poorer and less stable countries like Pakistan, Lebanon and Ethiopia are experiencing. No European Union member state ranks among the 10 major refugee-hosting countries.

Yet Europeans act as if they were on the verge of being “invaded.” A series of spats between France and Italy is a sad reminder that as few as 200 asylum seekers’ attempting to cross what the European Union considers an internal border under the Schengen Agreement, which has been in force for 20 years, today raises diplomatic tensions.

European countries have lost all sense of proportion. With a total population estimated at more than 740 million, they are among the richest and most stable countries in the world, but they pretend to be threatened by the idea of admitting 600,000 asylum seekers a year.

Europe needs to take a long, hard look at itself — and at the reality of the refugee issue. The European Union could start by overhauling its laws governing asylum and migration. By increasing legal avenues for migrants to reach Europe, with measures like eased humanitarian visas and family reunification rules, it would reduce the number of migrants taking perilous routes. That would help cut the ground from beneath the feet of smugglers, who grow richer when migration restrictions are harsh.

Laws that ensure a humane approach to the needs of migrants should replace provisions that criminalize migrants who enter and remain by irregular means. Such legislative changes must go hand in hand with improved migration policies.

First, we need a European-run Mare Nostrum mission to ensure extensive search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean. Second, European countries must more readily embrace the proposals made by the United Nations refugee agency, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, especially on the need to resettle people fleeing oppression and in need of protection.