This is the crucial part - there wouldn't (and shouldn't) be no risk in the first place. People should be allowed to just board a boat, or a flight, or a bus, towards the EU, and apply for asylum at the port/airport/border checkpoint.

That's literally the idea of the Geneva convention for refugees. However, our stupid xenophobic politicians came up with a law that expressly kills this process.

Because when someone applies for asylum, obviously someone must check if this person deserves asylum in the first place. Are they a refugee according to the Geneva convention? Are they a threatened minority in their home country? Etc.

This takes time, and during that time, the person needs to live somewhere. Well, and our wonderful EU law states that the transporting party (i.e. the cruise line/airline/bus company) needs to house and feed the people until they were processed. And if the people don't qualify for asylum, the transporting party is also responsible for transporting them back.

And this is why refugees can't take a "normal" flight, boat cruise, or bus trip - the travel companies won't accept them on board.