Ten Years later: The Migration Crisis That Shook Europe
Thomas R Ullmann
June 8th, 2025
Whilst I favour the passive voice; with an emphasis on what can be said objectively, to write this article in such a way would be disingenuous.
There is a personal aspect to this event. I remain in contact with many of those who fled in 2015. That year I was myself on the road - cycling on one of my Balkan adventures that encompassed much of the same route that refugees (as well as economic migrants) were taking. lt was a simple matter of chance. The initial plan to l spent days Belgrade, Serbia turned into several weeks. I attempted to document what I saw, both visually and through informal interviews; meeting people, listening, and as well as volunteering with local charities to hand out aid.
This article is therefore divided into two parts: a section on the time-line, an attempt to reconstruct what happened in 2015 in a more objective fashion and a subjective, anecdotal account based on my personal on-hand experience.
This is not a policy critique, nor a manifesto. My goal is simply to frame the 2015 migration crisis - a crisis for Europe, and equally for those displaced.
For the sake of clarity: l am not an advocate of open borders. Stability is often under valued, as is the reality that every society has limits to how far and how fast it can integrate newcomers. What those limits are, and how they change, remains a complex and necessary fertile ground for debate
Background and Timeline
Major events during the 2015 European migration crisis
The year 2015 became a perfect storm of collapsing states. The 2011 Arab Spring had triggered turmoil across the Middle East and North Africa, and nowhere was the fallout more harrowing than Syria, where a civil war of barrel bombs and proxy militias left entire cities in ruins. Afghanistan, bruised by decades of occupation and insurgency, continued to have an uncertain future.
Feeding into that chaos were other flashpoints: ISIS overrunning swathes of Iraq and Syria, Libya splintering into militias that turned its coastline into a base for people smugglers. Neighbouring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan sheltered millions but were themselves being destabilised by the strain. When Germany signalled in mid-2015 that Syrians would not be returned under the Dublin rules, the “Balkan Route” -stretching from the Greek Islands through Macedonia, Serbia, and Hungary, Austria then Germany- crystallised overnight. What began as a trickle of families gathered momentum: refugees fleeing war, Afghans fleeing uncertainty, Pakistani job-seekers chasing EU wages, all funnelled toward a Europe that was completely unprepared.
U-27 first-time asylum applicants (red) and total immigration flows
(blue). Many migrants came as economic migrants in 2015, only approximately
20% were refugees. The immigration wave from Ukraine in 2022 wa8
substantially larger. Despite not being considered under asylum protections
the European commission has given Ukrainians temporary protection for
people until 2027. Numbers collated from Eurostat's public datasets
Asylum applicants(left) and non-EU migrants (right) to the EU-27 comparing
the peak in 2015 and 2024/2022. [Numbers collated from Eurostat’s public
database]
By the end of 2016 the EU still had more than 1.1 million asylum cases awaiting a final decision-double the backlog recorded two years earlier. National offices were overwhelmed, with some drafting retired civil servants or rapidly training new caseworkers. The European Asylum Support Office described the surge as "the primary indicator of pressure on national asylum systems."1
Human-rights groups warned that once autumn turned to sleet, the crisis would "flip from logistics to triage." In November 2015, Medecius Sans Froutieres and UN agencies began issuing winter kits as hypothermia and pneumonia cases spiked. Sub-zero snaps over the following winter killed dozens of vulnerable people, including migrants, across central and southeastern Europe.2
Political scientists paint a two layer picture. At the municipal level in western Germany, towns that accommodated more asylum seekers after 2015 did register a statistically significant uptick in AfD votes. Yet the party's true strongholds lie in the eastern Länder (regions of Germany /states), which host fewer refugees per capita but exhibit stronger feelings of cultural and economic threat. This inverse, absence-breeds-anxiety pattern helps explain why, by early 2024, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) was polling above 20 percent nationwide-surpassing 30 percent in parts of Saxony and Thuringia-even though those regions saw only modest refugee inflows. Analysts still trace the party's rise to the symbolic shock of 2015-16, amplified by post-unification grievances and economic stagnation.3
In the case of Germany, recent microsimulations using SOEP data show that first-generation migrants from 2015 now have a positive fiscal impact. Once age structure and indirect taxes are included, their net contributions exceed those of natives. Three-quarters of working-age Syrians and Afghans were in employment or vocational training by 2023.4
Roughly 63% of refugees are now in work, but language barriers, credential mismatches, and childcare gaps still hamper full integration-particularly for women, whose employment rate remains low. Public opinion surveys also reflect continued anxiety about cultural fit and national identity.5
____________________________________________________
1 European Commission, "Annual report ou Asylum aud Migration 2016." See also EASO (2017), Annual Report on the Situation of Asylum in the EU.
2 UNHCR situation reports; MSF (2015), "Winter Crisis in the Balkans."
3 Dinas et al. (2019) Refugee Influx and Voting in Europe; Arzheimer Berning (2019) Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties; ARD-DeuttichlandTrend, Jan 2024.
4Brücker et al. (2023), IAB Research Report: "Refugees' Fiscal Impact in Germany."
5OECD (2023), "Indicators of Immigrant Integration." See also BAMF Integration Report (2022)
It was a city I knew well by this point with this my third two-wheeled adventure in the region. With my housemate from Germany, and a few Serbian friends; Belgrade was the perfect place to meet and celebrate my birthday.
With a day left to get to the city I had managed to descend from the mountains along the Montenegrin border, arriving by sunset in a village whose occupants rather fortunately were keen to stuff me with their delightful food. Harvest season was in full swing. The house I stayed at was in the midst of a mass sweet pepper roasting session; many of which were destined for jars, hoarded away for the winter months.
That scent of roasted sweet pepper is a hallmark of the region; and the closing days of the summer.
Not far from the Serbian border, my bike packed with my guitar and camping
equipment.
Stuffed like a Christmas turkey; my final leg to Belgrade was a cumbersome affair. Being overfed and sleepless does little for one's cadence. I was pushing the bounds of time- also known as being late- and decided it best to find a hostel and not bother my host with a midnight knock.
Awaking in the hostel and going to the kitchen l was taken aback. Many of the other residents looked like hardened backpackers. This point amused the owner of the hostel, "They're refugees" she clarified. Unbeknownst to me the stream of refugees through the Balkans had steadily increased. Having spent the best part of the month prior on the road l was almost entirely detached from the news.
The central park in Belgrade was entirely covered with tents by the time of my arrival in late August. Children played football alongside trucks filled with aid from various aid agencies. There was so little space that the central train station became a makeshift shelter with the authorities allowing people to sleep overnight; then ushering them out in the morning to make way for the commuters onto the trains.
A moment of quiet allowed for a time of reflection, often bringing to the
fore the sense of uncertainty. taken by T. Ullmann
For all the hectic nature of the situation I only witnessed cordiality on the part of the authorities.
Serbia had given transit visas to the migrants and was one of the friendlier countries. They had already heard what was ahead in the next country, Hungary. Police were far more aggressive, often putting migrants in makeshift camps, mocked, as well as claims of rape by the guards. Knowing what was to come; and the approximate 600km that many of them had walked, Belgrade became a place of rest and solace before the next leg of their journey.
This gave me an opportunity to get to know people over a number of days. Mostly they were unsure as to which country they would end up in; even asking me for my advice as to where to go. Information was changing daily; opportunities would appear, then would pass.
The demographic of the camp tended to be young; and mostly male, that didn't exclude the elderly in wheel chairs, and a host of children. The majority of which seemed often oblivious to the uncertainty; playing the rain and playing football. This was helped by the aid agencies recognising that the migrants needed more than just food and water and provided instruments and sound systems that lead to multiple impromptu parties. Authorities would restrict how late the music could be played but were generally accepting. This often lead to a positive mood in the camp.
Locals became quite accustomed to the camp, when interviewed a number said
'they know what it is like' in reference to the Serbian refugees who fled
Croatia. taken by T Ullmann.
The authorities allowed people to sleep overnight in the stations so long
as space was made in the morning for commuters. You would also find
migrants, looking to see if they could get tickets though the railways were
apprehensive, Hungary had begun to check the trains by this point making it
difficult to travel northwards. taken by T. Ullman.
One of the first people I sat with and interviewed was a man I got to know in the hostel, Muthanna. Highly educated, Mutharma was keen to talk in his impeccable English. He explained to me how he had become suspicious to the Assad regime, leading to interrogation, then torture. This wouldn't be the last time l would hear of these methods. Firstly, given he was a religious man, they would burn the quran in front of him as a means of insult. Then came the physical torture. A favourite of the Assad regime was to slowly pull the toe nails out of their feet.
Another man was Emad. He was travelling with his friend Waleed and a family he was friends with. After a storm battered the camp I had invited them to stay at the apartment l was living in. Emad was homosexual and had faced discrimination.
There were various families l got to know, nearly every one fragmented in one way or another. Unaccompanied children were relatively common. Jokanda and her sister were travelling alone. They were Kurds from northern Syria. At the time she was only 16.
At one point l thought l had met a man from Liverpool given a stark scouse accent. He explained to me how he had indeed lived in the north of England for ten years before being deported back to Afghanistan when the new Tory government of the 2010s deemed Afghanistan safe enough to return to. He had had heart issues and couldn't receive the proper treatment in Afghanistan, not to mention feeling more at home in Europe.
There are many other examples, including cricket loving Pakistanis trying their chance or other tragic stories like Muthana'ti
My farewell as I left Belgrade. Sadly the two brothers to the left of me
were separated in the Netherlands and put in two different families. l never
found out what happened to them thereafter. taken by T. Ullmann