Eritrean migrants in the hold of a large wooden boat which carried approximately 540 men, women, and children. The central migration route, between the coasts of Libya and Italy, remains busy. According to the UNHCR, 5,000 people died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean in 2016 Mathieu Willcocks/EPA/World Press Photo

While fleeing their war-torn countries for the sanctuary of Europe, most Syrians or Iraqis probably did not have Latvia in mind as their new home. Yet in the spirit of European Union solidarity the tiny Baltic nation agreed to take in 531 people under a two-year Brussels scheme to redistribute asylum seekers around the continent.

It did not start well. The first 23 people relocated to Riga from Greece disappeared within a matter of weeks and are believed to have set off for Germany. Latvia lacked the experience to provide an intensive integration programme. Of the 318 sent there few remain, according to Rihards Kozlovskis, the Latvian interior minister. He accepts that the EU plan is failing.

This was just one foreseeable flaw in the…