How Syrian refugees become pawns in a political circus

The numbers of Syrian refugees heading towards Europe defies all expectation as, since the summer, EU governments have been stirred to take in greater numbers - with Germany taking in the most.
But has the EU - which is largely behind coordinating the influx - creating a new crisis in itself, both for its own member state governments and the EU executive in Brussels?
The recent waves, with one just recently recorded at 10,000 in one day, are at least giving some legitimacy to the EU's impotent foreign policy circus in Brussels, headed by the Italian socialist Federica Mogherini - whose one unremarkable year in office was marked recently by her own press team publishing a list of the number of meetings she attended as an indicator of her achievements.
You can't make this stuff up.

Yet as EU governments on the edge of the continent harangue each other with threats of constructing a fence to hold back the masses, it's worth pondering where most of these Syrians are coming from. According to reports, most are coming from Syria itself and not from the numerous refugee camps in Jordan, Turkey or Lebanon - the latter 'hosting' the equivalent of a quarter of its population.
Remarkably, the port of Tripoli has seen something like 90,000 Syrians pass through it since the surge began in the summer and nearly all are of the merchant class, rather than the poorer masses in Lebanon who have been reduced to a slave labour regime which forces their children to work as farm labourers. Winter is coming and few fail to sympathise with those who have to bear the Bekka snow in Lebanon when it arrives.
Very few of those shivering in their tents in Lebanon are among this latest wave. So who are the winners and losers in this latest exodus?
Certainly, the surge in passport applications in Damascus gave the regime a 300 million dollar shot in the arm, but if the trend continues and Syria loses more of its population, the reduced demographic of Sunnis can only play into the hands of the regime which is already preparing itself to head to the polls.
But it also gives the EU's foreign policy diva something to do as, for the first time, she will have to play a key role in handling what is already being called a 'crisis'. Mogherini has been quick to warn that the EU itself - a wannabe superstate made up of around 40,000 overpaid Eurocrats - might disintegrate if Europe doesn't relinquish more power to her department. Currently the EU chief has no real concrete powers at all and is really performing the duties of an impotent diplomat, heralding a travelling circus of talk shops, producing impressive press releases and staging photoshoots with world leaders.
London, Paris and Berlin don't trust her with the weighty subject of their own foreign policy. There's too much at stake to fumble and outsourcing it to washed up European politicians who ride the EU gravy train is far too risky.
And so she's started to up the stakes in the war of words in a bid to extract some token proxy powers from Europe's big guns.
Calling it the worst refugee crisis since World War II collectively, Mogherini warned in an Italian newspaper that if the EU merely relied on national responses to a European issue, "the crisis will get worse, with chain reactions from public opinion and national governments".
To prevent this, she told the Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper, the bloc needed to be equipped with "instruments up to the challenge" without which, she warned, "there is the risk of disintegration".
Or, in other words, the eurojargon decoded: "Give me real foreign policy power, otherwise I will stand by and do nothing as another 100,000 Syrians make it across the Slovenian border into Old Europe giving you a political crisis in your own country".
The veiled threat to EU leaders came a day after Austria announced plans to build a fence at a major border crossing with fellow EU state Slovenia to "control" the migrant influx amidst much talk of one of the bastions of the European Union - freedom of movement through its cherished passport-free Schengen zone - might have its days numbered. At some point, Germany and other EU countries will stem the flow and say 'no more'. When this happens, the risk that scores of thousands of Syrians will be stranded in their first port-of-entry EU countries will increase and then Schengen will be shook. In June we saw the Italian government threaten to dump their own refugees on Europe by giving them temporary visas - allowing them to travel anywhere in Europe. And now we are seeing the argument over where to put the so-called fence on the country which offers the soft underbelly to Europe.
It's a subject which I have given a lot of thought to of late as to how super powers - and their supporters - are all using the refugee crisis as a political tool. I called a Syrian journalist who works in Beirut for his view but could not reach him. "He's no longer in Beirut. He's in Germany now living as a refugee", a husky female voice told me before abruptly hanging up.
Martin Jay is a veteran foreign correspondent based in Beirut
@MartinRJay