EU brought the refugee crisis upon itself

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L), British Prime Minister David Cameron (C) and French President Francois Hollande (R) take part in a meeting at a European Union leaders summit in Brussels October 15, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

Heads of government from European and African countries, together with delegates from international and regional organizations, gathered in Malta on Wednesday and Thursday for a summit on migration. And the Middle East refugee crisis will be an important topic at the G20 summit in Antalya, Turkey, on Nov 15-16, too. This is a good time for the entire world to reflect on the reasons behind the crisis.

From the Ukraine crisis and the Greek debt crisis to the ongoing Middle East refugee crisis, serious exigencies have been haunting the European Union. But perhaps the greatest challenge the EU faces is the massive wave of asylum seekers from the Middle East, many of whom have risked their lives to flee their war-torn homelands in Syria, Libya and even Afghanistan.

The European Commission reportedly plans to propose a "structural EU-wide resettlement scheme" early next year for the refugees. Its aim is to accept at least 200,000 refugees directly from camps in countries such as Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.

That EU leaders have resorted to transnational cooperation to take in and resettle more refugees from the Middle East is indeed praiseworthy. But it should not be forgotten that the humanitarian crisis would not have happened had the West not instigated the "color revolutions" in the Arab world and Eastern Europe.

By sowing the seeds of street politics, the United States-led West tried to spread its own form of democracy, characterized by drastic regime change and political transformation, in the Middle East and North Africa. It had tried similar methods to establish its hold in Eastern European countries in the early 1990s following the disintegration of the Soviet Union.