The refugee crisis has highlighted the huge political gap on crucial challenges facing the EU, as well as the extremely dangerous institutional and democratic deficits that were undermining the foundations of the European edifice, said the President of Greece, Prokopis Pavlopoulos during his opening speech at the conference of the Network for Reform in Greece and Europe. Mr. Pavlopoulos underlined that the refugee crisis was one of the two major issues plaguing the EU, the other being the economic crisis, which was the cause of a deep social and monetary crisis. The President of Greece claimed the EU had delayed addressing the refugee crisis in ways fitting to the gravity of the situation and the Union’s cohesion and future prospect. He lamented the fact that many EU member-states had failed to sufficiently grasp the severity of the situation, exhibiting unprecedented syndromes of phobias, leading to their dealing with Europe as a confined area to be protected, rather than a place of inclusion.